Something Wild
by Bella's.old.chevy
Summary: When Bella Swan found herself honeymooning-alone-she knew it was time for a change. So to ease her jilted-at-the-alter blues, the plain, practical bookstore owner let down her hair, kicked up her heels, and a new, slightly naughty Bella was ready to take on the world... And that included Edward Masen, a downright, uptight, lawyer.
1. prologue

Disclaimer:

All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. Are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Prologue.

Edward Masen shifted the car into park and switched off the engine and lights. He peered through the late-night darkness at the house he had sought and found by taking the address from Esme's address book and consulting a map bought at an all-night liquor store.

The house was on of those low, flat-roofed structures, without any distinguishing features. Edward thought it a surprisingly average-looking place for an ex-lover of Esme.

Wondering ruefully if he'll ever see a good-night's sleep again, he rubbed his stiff muscles at the back of his neck. He had a problem with insomnia and hadn't been able to sleep last night. And tonight, of course, would end up a total loss. His eyes felt grainy, his tie too tight. He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger in a futile effort to massage away the tiredness, then loosened his tie.

Guilt, dread and anger had carried him this far. But now he hesitated. Was he doing the right thing? He spent several seconds debating, staring rather blankly at his watch. The time was 3am. He really hated to disturb the house's occupants at this ungodly hour.

If he had any sense at all he'd give up. Return to L.A and get on with his life.

But he couldn't. He was too worried about Esme. Growing up with her for a mother hadn't been his idea of the perfect upbringing. But still, she had done her best. He loved her, and he owed her. And the note she'd left behind for her stunned fiance when she ran out on her engagement party had rung a shrill warning in Edward's mind and heart,

_Carlisle,_

_My secret sister needs me in Palm Springs, so I must go to her at her hotel there._

_And I want to be honest with you, my love. I must see Jack Smith before I can marry you. I was in love with him once, long ago. And he lives there now. I must have some time to be sure. Please understand._

_Yours,_

_Esme._

Carlisle had handed Edward the note without saying a word, and then told Edward very quietly that he wanted to be alone. Just thinking of the stunned, despairing expression on the older man's face made Edwards stomach twist with guilt.

Carlisle Cullen was the senior partner in Edward's law firm, Edward's mentor and father he never had.

Carlisle never would have met Esme Platt if Edward hadn't introduced them two years before.

But worse than Edward's guilt, even worse than his rage at his mother for pulling this stunt, was his dread.

"My secret sister needs me..." she had written. What the hell was a secret sister? Edward was afraid he already knew. He was all too aware of his mother's fatal weakness for odd societies and fringe groups.

Edward was terrified that if he didn't get to her soon, she'd sign over everything she owned to this secret sister. He was afraid she was throwing away her happiness and her solvency. As her only child, he just couldn't sit by and let her ruin her life.

Positive that he was in the right, he left the car. He strode purposefully up the walk, past the crouching shadows of spiky-leaved century plants and a pair of runty yuccas. There was a wooden plaque beneath the porch light that read The Smiths.

Edward rang the doorbell. When there was no immediate answer, he waited a respectable ninety seconds and rang again. A light went on in a side window. He waited some more and then the door, held by a chain, opened a crack.

A middle-aged woman, her head covered by pink foam rollers and a flowered hair net, peeked around the door.

Edward's quick mind drew the logical conclusions. This had to be the ex-boyfriend's wife. The likelihood that he'd find Esme wrapped in Jack Smith's arms had just greatly diminished.

"Yes?" Through bleary eyes, the woman peeked at him. He knew that his clothes and manner spoke well for him, and he was careful not to present a threatening stance. He gave her a moment to look him over before he spoke.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry to bother you..." Edward began.

"It's very late," the woman murmured, looking a bit less wary.

"I know, but I'm trying to find somebody and I was afraid if I waited until a more respectable hour, that "-he paused significantly, hoping he was taking the right track on this"- trail would be cold."

The woman narrowed her eyes.

"Are you with the police?"

"No." He cleared his throat officiously, and then dropped his voice to a confidential whisper. "This is a private matter." he whipped out a picture of Esme to show the woman.

The woman gave it one quick look and then swore in a distinctly non matronly manner. "I should have known."

"Then you've seen her?" Edward asked. "What's she done?"

She glanced over her shoulder, no doubt eager to get Esme in as much hot water as possible before her husband could come out and interrupt. "All I can say is, about seven last night, she came into the store that Jack and I own. She strolled in bold as you please and pranced right up to the counter where Jack was ringing up a sale. 'Hello Jack' she says in this low, sexy voice. Then grabs him by the neck, kisses him right on the mouth in a way that left no doubt they'd once been, well you she steps back, shakes her head, and prances out. Jack swears he hasn't seen her in forty years, but I-"

"Enid, what the hell is going on out there!" The man's voice came from somewhere in the back of the house.

"Nothing, Jack!" She grinned at Edward, rather slyly."He's sleeping in the back room tonight." She turned as footsteps approached behind her.

Then Jack, older than Enid and totally bald, was squinting around the door. " What's this? Man can't get no sleep in his own damn house."

"I'm sorry to bother you-"

"Then don't."

Then Edward stuck his foot in the door before Jack could slam it

"Please. Just one question."

"Make it snappy."

"Do you happen to know where Esme Platt might have gone?"

Jack crackled. "Nope." He shook his head, and a gleam came into his watery eyes. "What a woman."

"Jack!" Enid screeched from behind him.

"She didn't happen to mention anything about a secret sister, did she?"

Jack shook his head. "Get your foot out of the door, sonny. As you can hear, I got me a little domestic problem to take care of."

"Thanks." Edward removed his foot and Jack shut the door.

Edward stood on the walkway for a moment, hearing the arguing voices behind the door and wondering what to do next. Then he returned to his car.

The problem was that he had no lead at all on this mysterious secret sister. A call to Alice Whitlock, Esme's assistant at her hair salon, had revealed only that Alice "Though it was something to do with a woman's group," which told Edward nothing. Calls to two or three of Esme's closer friends had gotten him no more information. They all said they had no idea what he was talking about, but that Esme always had been one to get involved with "interesting" people.

Intent on finding some kind of clue, no matter how minimal, Edward took the crumpled note from the glove compartment and, by the dim interior light, read it again.

_My secret sister needs me in Palm Springs, so I must go to her at her hotel there..._

Edward switched off the light and sat in the total darkness, staring at the shadows of the surrounding mountains against the night sky.

How many hotels could there be in a resort town like Palm Springs?

"Too many," he answered his own question aloud with a weary sigh.

But what else did he have to go on? Zero.

He pictured Palm Canyon Drive in his mind. Several miles of street, packed with exclusive shops, restaurants- and countless hotels.

Grimly, he slid his key into the ignition and started up the car again. If he intended to visit every hotel in Palm Springs in hopes that his mother had registered in one of them using her name, he'd better get started. Somehow, he had to find Esme before her "secret sister" took her for everything she was worth.


	2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:

All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 1

Bella Swan was lazing abed in her honeymoon suite when a timid knock, barely audible in the bedroom, came at the sitting room door.

Bella snuggled deeper beneath the satin sheets, feeling deliciously self-indulgent. Then she rolled over. Her skin felt like silk, the result of a long, luxurious soak in a tub full of foaming bath salts.

The bath had smelled like fresh strawberries and so had the special soap that Esme had bought for her to use.

Half asleep, Bella smiled, thinking of Esme. Whatever else had gone wrong in Bella's life, she'd certainly hooked the gold ring when she drew Esme for her secret sister.

With her leather cosmetic kit under one arm, Esme had driven all the way to Palm Springs to come to Bella's aid. She had arrived at Bella's hotel at eight the night before, wearing a man's tweed sport coat tossed rakishly across her shoulders and waving a bottle of expensive champagne.

"I'll have you know I stopped in the bar to get us this champagne," were the first words out of Esme's mouth. Then the older woman shivered. Trailing a scent of musk, her signature scent, Esme waltzed into the room, shedding the tweed jacket. "It was _freezing_ in the bar. Why is it they always keep the temperature subzero in desert hotels?" She'd tossed her makeup kit on the sitting-room couch. "But, as luck would have it, I met the sweetest little red headed man who loaned me his jacket. Chivalry, whatever they say, is far from dead. Now call room service and order us up some champagne flute and let's have a toast to sisterhood-and you new freedom that you're going to thoroughly _enjoy_!"

Now the morning after, Bella indulged in a contented yawn. With her eyes still closed, she went on smiling. As Esme had so wisely pointed out, life was all in how you looked at it. Bella could think herself as jilted at the altar- or as set miraculously free. When you saw it that way, the choice was a simple one to make.

Bella sighed, happily. It was going to be a beautiful day, because _she_ was going to make it that way. After a while, she would get up and take a long, hot shower. Then she'd pamper herself with a leisurely breakfast in the hotels best restaurant- not the coffee shop today. Oh, no, she'd eat slowly and pleasurably on good china in elegant surroundings. And then she was going to buy herself a whole new wardrobe- and not one single item in it would be her usual beige.

Bella Swan might in actuality be nothing more than an ordinary, practical lady who owned a bookstore in westwood. But that didn't mean she couldn't start dressing in bright colors. "If you want to be different, you have to be willing to change," Esme had said the night before. And Bella intended to take her secret sister's advice completely to heart.

Out in the other room, the knock came again, slightly louder and more insistent.

"Alright, I'm coming!" Bella sat up among the acres of bed linens and reveled in a long, lazy stretch. Then she allowed herself to gaze at her own reflection in the wall of the mirrors on the other side of the room.

Her plain brown hair now cascaded down around her bare shoulders. Esme had trimmed it in layers, so that the natural curl became apparent, and she frosted the ends, so it glowed with bronze highlights. Her makeup, which looked so good last night that she hadn't wanted to wash off, had a smudgy look now, but it didn't matter to Bella. Beneath the smokey eye shadow, her brown eyes shone back at her, full of mischief and promise. She looked golden and decadent, she decided, in her apricot silk teddy and absolutely nothing else.

The tapping on the door came again. Bella tossed back the covers and entered the suites huge bathroom. A fluffy terry-cloth robe, provided by the hotel, hung on a peg behind the door. She snared it and stuck her arms in the sleeves, belting it haphazardly as she went to answer the knock.

When she flung open to door wide, the response of the man waiting on the other side was extremely gratifying. He gulped and stared.

Bella granted him a dazzling smile. "Yes?"

He stuttered out a nervous explanation. "I, uh...last night I loaned my jacket to the lady in the room across the hall. But when I asked about her at the front desk just now, they said she'd checked out already. I wondered if you..." His voice trailed off as Bella casually re belted her robe.

It was obvious that he found Bella quite attractive. He seemed to be mesmerized by the bit of apricot silk that rebelting her robe had revealed

"I'd trade my Mercedes to be like you," Bella moaned to Esme the night before.

Esme had gazed measuring back at her for a moment, and then replied, "No, be yourself. Always." a mysterious smile crossed her full mouth. "Besides, you're going to be surprise at what a knockout you are once I'm through with you."

As the redheaded man stared at her with his mouth open, Bella felt naughty-and wonderful. Her new look was having its intended effect. The poor man's face flamed as red as his hair.

"There's a siren inside of everyone of us," Esme had told her. "It's only a matter of bringing her out."

Of course, Bella had no intention of indulging the siren within herself full-time, but it couldn't hurt to flirt just a little every now and then. She upped the wattage on her smile, feeling like a completely new and beautiful woman, like someone just a little wild on the brink of a grand adventure.

She heard Esme's voice again in her mind. "So what if your fiance jilted you? Let him go. Someone better will always come along-take it from a sister with a wealth of experience in the games of the heart. Now. To go ahead with the honeymoon anyway was a stroke of genius. But you ruin the whole idea if you just sit here in your room and mope." Green eyes flashing, Esme had waved her expensive shears, which glittered brightly in the light of the nearby ginger jar lamp. "What you need is adventure, something different and utterly wild. First, though, we get rid of the Marian librarian hair and brighten up the makeup. We're talkin makeover here, darlin'. We're going to totally change yourself image, starting with what you see when you look in the mirror..."

The redheaded man, still waiting for his coat, cleared his throat uncomfortably. Bella went on smiling.

What a wonder Esme was, Bella thought with fondness. Esme was the sister she wished she'd had, the mother she should have had, a true friend for life. Esme was-she paused in her mental testimonial as the man's first words to her suddenly sunk in.

"Excuse me, I wasn't listening," Bella said. "Did you say Esme had already checked out?"

"That's what they told me at the desk."

Bella frowned. She's thought perhaps she and Esme would hit the stores together today. For a moment she felt cheated. But then that sense of promise and excitement, Esme's gift to her, overrode the rest.

Of course. How like Esme to do what needed to be done and then on her way. Like a modern fairy godmother, Esme had waved her magic wand. And like a fairy godmother, she'd disappeared before the dawn. And, of course, they would meet again in L.A soon enough.

Bella's admirer made a questioning noise n his throat. Bella realized she'd kept him standing there waiting for several minutes while she privately rhapsodize about Esme.

"I'm sorry. Your jacket, you're looking for your jacket?"

He nodded, smiling bashfully, and she noticed a gap between his two front teeth. She thought it charming because it suited him, with his shyness and his ready blush.

"Yes, I think I can help you there." She asked is name and he said "Ricky." She stepped aside and gestured him into the suite.

The jacket was draped over one arm of the couch. She picked it up and gave it to him.

"Thanks," he said. He was looking at the champagne bottle, upended in the bucket of melted ice, at the two champagne flutes on the glass coffee table. "I hope I didn't disturb you."

Bella grinned and took his arm to lead him back to the door. "Well, I _am_ on my honeymoon."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I really am." he was blushing furiously. "I hope your husband-"

They reached the door which stood wide open. Bella went on tiptoe and kissed him on his cheek.

"Don't you worry about him," she said. "He's a very sound sleeper. In fact," she lowered her voice to a confidential whisper, "Until you brought him up, I'd forgotten all about him."

Ricky blinked and his blush spread,, until even his ears turned red. He looked nervously at the half-open door to the bedroom. "Er, ma'am..."

"Bella," She said.

"I really have to go now."

Bella shrugged, and tried to keep from giggling out loud.

"And ma'am..."

"Yes, ricky?"

"You really shouldn't talk like that." He was already backing down the hall.

Bella leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "I just have no idea what's gotten into me."

Ricky, visions of a large and jealous husband presumably flashing through his brain had reached the elevator. He barely pushed the button when the doors slid wide, he disappeared inside, not glancing in Bella's direction again.

Remaining propped against the jamb, Bella stuck both fists in the pockets of the robe, looked down at her bare feet, which had been so beautifully manicured by Esme and realized she's probably carried the joke a bit too far. She'd liked Ricky. And teasing about her nonexistent husband had been rather mean. In her own mind or course, the joke had been on herself. But Ricky hadn't known that.

Mentally chastising herself, Bella pushed a strand of brown hair behind her ear and then captured her index finger lightly between her teeth. The new Bella might be wild, she decided but in the future she was going to stop being mean.

Softly, behind her, someone coughed. Bella turned her head toward the sound.

A man stood, behind and across from her, in the doorway to the suite that had been Esme's.

Over six feet tall and expensively dressed in a pinstriped suit over a white shirt, he wore cordovan shoes and a nubby silk tie in a deep maroon that was echoed in is precisely folded pocket handkerchief.

Thick, dark brown hair, with hints of penny copper was sticking out everywhere around a sharp, angular face. His jade-green eyes assessed her cooly.

Through he appeared a little tired, and his tie was slightly askew, everything about him shouted success-and the absolute assurance that things would always go the way he made them go. He was precisely the sort of man the old Bella would have thought too exemplary to be true. She would have been intimidated by him. But new, slightly naughty Bella, decided he was smug and superior and not her type at all.

Having defined him as of absolutely no interest to her, she didn't have to be mortified that he had probably just observed her kissing a strange man goodbye in the hallway while wearing little more beneath her rope than a wisp of silk and lingering scent of strawberry bath salts.

"Sorry to interrupt your thoughts," he said in a quiet, well-modulated voice. His hesitation before the word "thoughts," told her clearly that he'd already assumed her most strenuous mental activities revolved around such quandaries as what to do about a broken nail and how to rid one of boyfriend before the next arrived.

Bella decided she loathed him. If he wanted to think of her as wild and naughty, well, fine, let him think it. She lounged more obviously against the door. "Exactly how long have you been standing there?" Though she didn't care in the least what he thought, she couldn't help asking how much he'd seen.

"Long enough," he replied. Bella felt the flush creeping up from between the fluffy facings of her robe and ordered it back down. At the end of the hall, the elevator doors slid open again. The man glanced toward the sound. There was something in the movement, in the way he tipped his head, that Bella found obscurely familiar. The doors glided shut again, no one getting on or off.

Green eyes focused on Bella once more, and the moment of familiarity ended.

The interruption had served a useful purpose, though, in giving her time to realize that this standoff in the hall with an arrogant stranger was not one bit wiser than teasing the bashful Ricky had been. The new Bella needed a lesson in the discretion from the old. She reached for the door handle.

"Wait a minute, Ms-?" he managed a reasonably polite smile. " I didn't catch your name."

"I didn't throw it," she snapped tartly, then relented enough to tell him. "Bella Swan."

"Just one question Ms. Swan," he went on after a moment.

"Alright."

"The woman who was staying in this room- do you happen to know where she went?"

"What woman?" Bella asked without missing a beat, feeling a strong protectiveness toward Esme well up within her. She had no idea what this man wanted Esme for; maybe Esme didn't want him to find her. And besides, she also had no idea where Esme had gone.

"Caramel hair, sixty but looks younger." The man rattled off a shopping list of Esme's physical attributes in a deep, businesslike voice. "Green eyes. About five foot seven. I have a picture." he reached into his inside jacket pocket.

"No." Bella shook her head. "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't help you at all." she shut the door in his handsome overbearing face.

Edward stared at the closed door and debated whether or not to knock. The woman knew _something_ he was sure of it. As a lawyer, he was trained to notice every nuance of voice and gesture for clues to the truth beneath an artful lie. He'd seen the flash of indecision cross that gorgeous face hiding something. Edward raised a determined fist and rapped sharply on the door.

"Go away," the infuriating creature on the other side called after a moment.

He knocked again.

"I'm going to call security," she threatened in a sweet little singsong, still not opening up.

Edward waited. He was betting she wouldn't be able to resist checking to see if he's truly gone. Beautiful provocative woman like this one were like cats-too curious for their own good.

But Ms. Swan did the unexpected. Minutes passed, and she didn't reappear. She was all he had that even remotely resembled a lead, he knew he was going to have to wait her out.

Disgusted and annoyed, he want back across the hall to the suite he's rented when the desk clerk had told him Esme was already gone. He took the small vanity chair from the dressing area and, with the door open just a crack, positioned himself to be ready when his quarry ventured out of her lair.

The time seemed to creep by. Edward spent it studying the pattern in the Navaho rug underfoot, staring at the prints on the walls, and listening to his stomach, which hadn't been fed since the afternoon before, complain.

Precisely forty-seven minutes later, his patience was rewarded. She emerged, humming and smiling to herself. All that wild chestnut and gold hair was piled every which way on her head so that little strands of it corkscrewed down her neck as she turned to lock the door of her room. Surprisingly, she was wearing a perfectly modest pair of tan Bermuda shorts and a simple white shirt.

He considered following her surreptitiously, and then felt like a fool. He wanted an honest answer as to what she knew about Esme, and nothing more. Therefore, sneaking around behind her while she cut through the Desert Fashion Plaza would be ridiculous.

Edward would find out soon enough-by demanding the truth.

In fact, watching this brown haired seductress, obviously fresh from an invigorating shower- he, of course, hadn't dared leave his post for a shower, though his fastidious nature cried out for one- and ready to waste away her day prowling Palm Springs for new diversions, he began to feel more than a little provoked. And then it occurred to him that feeling provoked was irrational and he didn't even know this woman; what she did with her time was no business of his. Realizing he was responding irrationally provoked him even more.

Disgusted with himself, furious at Esme and fed up with this woman whom he didn't even know, he quietly rose to his feet, stepped silently into the hall and inquired in a voice so level and controlled, said, "Ready for breakfast?"

Bella spun around.

So he hadn't left after all, she thought. It appeared he'd been lurking in Esme's suite, waiting for a chance to pounce. He strode toward her, looking so calm and determined that she had to admire his composure, at least. She noted with a wayward stab of satisfaction, though, that his tie was even more askew than it had been when she'd shut her door in his face. Mr. Impeccable, as she'd begun to secretly call him, was becoming more peccable by the moment.

"Not with you," she replied in dulcet tones.

But he's already taken her arm. Surprised by the warmth of his touch, she fell in step with him.

"I thought I said no," she told him without much conviction as they waited for the elevator.

"A lady always has the right to change her mind," he countered pleasantly. His stress on the word lady was so faint that she wisely decided to let it pass.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

In the hotel's best restaurant, Georgia O'keefe prints of calla lilies and hibiscus flowers graced the walls. The colors were soothing ones of turquoise sky and golden sand.  
>Mr. Impeccable ordered eggs Benedict, tomato juice, buttermilk, an extra English muffin, a side of pancakes and cantaloupe. "I haven't eaten since yesterday," he explained somewhat defensively on observing her awed expression.<p>

Bella ordered coffee, melon and a poached egg.

"You should give up coffee," he remarked imperiously. When the waiter had left the, "An it wouldn't hurt you to have toast. Grains are a mainstay of any balanced diet."

she stifled a groan. Not only impeccable, but an expert on nutrition. The old Bella would have been licking his cordovan shoes. "I'm watching my weight."

"Why?" he rank from the glass of tomato juice that appeared at his elbow. "There's nothing wrong with your weight."

"My lord. That was almost a compliment."

He lifted an eyebrow at her. "You're beautiful. You know it. I know it. It's reasonable to assume that all the men you know know it. Is it something you also need to have talked about all the time?"

the acid smile she tossed him would have eaten through lead. "I'm insecure." He snorted disbelieving in reply.

A few minutes of weighted silence ensued, while Bella wondered what had possessed her to ruin her morning by having breakfast with-"what is you name, anyway?"

"Edward Masen."

Luckily, Bella was not in the middle of a sip of coffee, because she surely would have choked on it.

Of course, she thought grimly, schooling her features to reveal none of her surprise. Mr Impeccable was Esme's son.

In her memory's clear vision she could see Esme, sitting cross-legged in a straight back chair at the June street library where they met every week.

"I love my son very much," Esme had said. "and I'm proud of him. He's only thirty-one and already a partner in his corporate law firm. He works hard and he;s extremely responsible. But he's, well, stuffy and bossy, and he's never approved of the Way I live my life. His father died before he was born, I hadn't gotten around to marrying the dear man before he was killed. I don't think Edward ever really forgiven me for making a baby without a ring on my finger. Edward's so proper and perfect, you see. He finds it extremely imperfect the I never provided him with a daddy."

Across from her, Edward spoke with gruff accusation. "You know who I am."

Bella made herself sigh airily. "Oh, do I?"

"Give me the truth, . Who are you and what do you know about Esme?"

Not until you're, , she answered silently. She asked, ll innocence, "is you name supposed to mean something to me?"

"Does it?"

She pretended to consider, then answered, "Well, there is the fact that it's perfect."

"That's all?" he demanded. She merely smiled. After a moment's pause he went on suspiciously, "What do you mean, perfect?"

She started on the melon, quite pleased with herself to have regained her equilibrium so quickly after learning who he was. "It fits you, that's all. Edward. Number one and unflappable. Your last name's somewhat out of character, though. It's a little, well, dashing. But don't worry. Looking at you, I can see that you've utterly squashed any dashingness that m be lurking deep down inside."

"That takes a load off my mind.," he muttered drily.

"I'm sure it does."

"Is there anything else you've discerned about me merely by learning my name?"

"Only that you have some sort of really distinguished and enviable profession, am I right/ one at which you just naturally excel, I have it." She batted her eyes at him, provokingly. "A lawyer. Corporate law, probably."

He straightened his tie. "Admit it. You know who I am."

"I'm admitting nothing."

"You look uncomfortable."

"Do I? I'm not."

"Would you like me to change the subject stop pressing you for how you know what kind of work I do?"

"That would be lovely," She said. The waiter slid her poached egg in front of her. She poked her spoon at it.

"What shall we talk about instead?" he prodded.

Bella shrugged her shoulders and swallowed a bite of egg. "Why don't you tell me?"

"All right. Let's get back to Esme."

Well, she thought, I walked right into that one. "Who?" she asked, feigning ignorance.

He precisely spread butter on his stack of pancakes. "Come on, Ms. Swan. I know you've at least talked to her. I saw it in your eyes when I first mentioned her to you. Even the type of woman you are can't hide the truth all the time."

"Have I just been insulted?" Bella queried lightly.

"Not unless you find honesty insulting."

Bella could almost have dumped her empty melon rind in his lap. Honesty, indeed. The man certainly had nerve, to sit across from her and talk about truth when he wasn't even admitting his own identity. Deciding self-righteously that her own deception was totally justified, she said in a sexy little purr, "Hmm. The type of woman I am...and just what type is that?"

He looked up from his meal, scanning her casually pinned hair and the smoky shadows above her eyes that Esme had taught her to apply so artfully. His glance lingered on you full, lushly tinted lips. "Wild. Footloose. A woman who never worries about who'll pay the bill, because there's always some man falling all over himself to grab it."

she looked back at him levelly. "You can't be sure I'm like that."

"Can't I?"

"You don't know me at all."

"Yes, I do, Bella Swan. I know you all too well. His quiet, polished voice was suddenly like velvet. His jade eyes shadowed.

In an arrested moment of crystal-clear perception, Bella understood that this too perfect, arrogant man did indeed find her beautiful.

And bad.

And probably dangerous to know.

He was drawn to her, just like the little redheaded man, because she represented the power and magic that all sirens promised, as well as the imminent risk of destruction at their hands.

Such a realization was intensely exciting. Her heart beat a little faster, and she felt a delicious surging in her blood. A hectic flush rose to her cheeks.

"Stop it," he ordered, as if she'd done something overtly sensual. He very carefully wiped his mouth with his napkin, and then slipped the soft linen beneath the lip of his plate.

As she had in the hallway when the redheaded man had disappeared in the elevator, Bella felt chastened. What in the world was happening to her, anyway?

One part of her wanted to look straight into Edward's eyes and tell him the hole truth and nothing but the truth: that she was really just an ordinary, everyday kind of person. That she owned her own business and paid her way. That she kept her figure he admired through watching her diet and exercising three times a week without fail. That she was going through a crisis due to being stood up at the altar. That therefore she needed to kick up her heels and behave a little recklessly to get over the natural reactions of hurt and insecurity.

It was the truth. You could never go wrong by telling the truth...

Edward was watching her guardedly, that shadow of suppressed desire in his eyes.

That shadow would disappear, of course, once he learned who the real Bella Swan was. It shouldn't matter that it would; she was never going to see him again, anyway. Not to mention the fact that any desire he might be denying was for someone who didn't really even exist.

But then, if she did reveal her true self, how would she explain her overnight transformation without admitting that she did know Esme, after all?

And then, coming right down to it, what in heaven's name was he after Esme for, anyway? And if Esme didn't want to see her son right now, what kind of a secret sister would Bella be if she gave him any clues that might tell him where to find her?

"Just tell me what she said to you," he prompted, reading her silence, correctly, as a weaning in her stance.

Stalling, Bella made an elaborate show of pulling her compact from her purse, applying lipstick and powdering her nose. "Why in the world are after this poor, woman, anyway?" she asked at last.

"Then you admit that you talked to her?"

"Did I say that?"

"Did she tell you anything about-"

Bella cut him off, not wanting to hear more and he drwan in. "Slow down, counselor. You're leading the witness."

He shifted in his chair, no doubt planning his next interrogatory attack. The light from a nearby window fell across his face, casting his string features into sharp relief. He looked stern enough to be one of the faces on mount rushmore.

"Are you going to answer any of my questions?" he demanded when the silence had stretched to the breaking point.

Bella considered this query, and then demanded more firmly than she had asked before, "If you want me to answer your questions, I have a right to know why you're chasing this woman."

"It's a private matter."

"That tells me nothing did she do something illegal?

"Well..."

"Something illegal. Yes or no."

"Who sounds like a lawyer now?" he asked.

"You're stalling."

"All right. No, not precisely illegal."

"Sort of illegal?"

"No," he glared at her. "Not illegal, but unethical. She broke a promis to someone she loves. Now, will you let me ask a few of the questions?"

Bella evaluated. Was what he's grudgingly disclosed enough to make her betray Esme? After all, she owed Esme a lot for rushing to her side when her whole world seemed to have fallen apart and for showing her how to turn things around.

"No." Bella reached for her purse. "No more questions." She pulled out her wallet.

"What do you think your doing?"

Extracting several bills, she dropped them in the middle of the table. "Paying for my breakfast. Whatever you may think, no man pays my way."

"I didn't say-"

"You didn't have to say. You saw me kissing a man in the hall and you naturally assumed I make my living that way."

"I said you were wild. That doesn't mean I think you're a-"  
>"Please." She stopped him before he could say the ugly word. "There's no need to put too fine a point on it."<p>

"Then pick up your money and sit down. I offered you breakfast, iIll pay for it."

"I'm finished eating, and I have things to do."

"Sit back down, we're not through here."

"Have a nice life, Edward Masen."

Not looking back, Bella wove her way between the linen covered tables and through the reception area with its skylights and sun-speckled potted palms. Once one of the restaurant, she went straight to the bank of elevators in the main lobby.

She'd rushed the down button for the parking levels when Edward caught up with her.

"That's was childish and rude," he told her condescendingly.

She pressed the button again.

"Please be reasonable," he said.

"How many ways can I say it? I have nothing whatsoever to tell you, so our brief association in terminated."

"Bella-"

The doors to one of the elevator cars opened, and Bella found herself face-to-face with the redheaded man, who was wearing jogging shorts and shoes and a sweatband around his forehead, obviously fresh from the hotel gym, at the sight of Bella, his blush seemed to started at his bare knees.

She decided to brazen it out. "H, there." she said cheerily. "Did you have a good workout?"

He gulped , and stared over her shoulder. Bella realized that the bashful redhead assumed Edward was her big, jealous husband.

"Damn it, Bella." Edward grasped her elbow Bella shook him off and stepped over the threshold as the poor redhead dwindled to the back of the car.

Persistent as a bloodhound on the scent, Edward followed. Before the doors closed, several others, including a blue-haired lady clutching a french poodle, and three teenaged girls with shopping bags, piled in behind them,

By the time her mind finally registered that the car was going up, Bella found herself wedged between the wall and the lady with the poodle, flanked by the blushing redhead on one side and the relentless Edward n the other. The teenaged girls giggle among themselves. The poodle sniffed disdainfully.

At the third floor, the teenaged girls got off, but two couples took their places. The lday with the poodle backed up until she'd squeezed herself between the redhead and Bella. This left Bella closer than ever to Edward, who obligingly moved into the corner and pulled Bella back with him.

"Hands off," Bella whispered.

They were fitted together like spoons in a drawer, Edward's large and warm hands resting firmly on her waist.

"Stop squirming," he ordered quietly. "Things are tight enough as it is." Bella subsided as the car began its upward journey again.

In seconds before they stopped at the next floor, she became all too intimately aware of him, pressed so close against her. The matte fabric of his slacks tickled the tender skin behind her knees, and his chest was hard and firm at her back.

Bella started miserably at the wet nose of the poodle, who seemed by now to radiate canine disapproval.

"What's the matter?" Edwards breath teased her ear, and and she actually thought she detected a note of humor in his soft whisper. "Are you afraid he'll hurt that you've found someone else so soon?"

"Who?" She tried to sound utterly guileless.

"The one with the knobby knees and the red face to match his hair." He kept his voice low enough that only she could hear.

The elevator stopped. One of the couples got off. The redhead saw his chance, and slid around the blue-haired lady and out just before the doors closed.

"Another day, another heart broken," Edward murmured, and rather sanctimoniously, too, Bella thought.

"You really don't need to hold me so tightly anymore," she shot back sweetly. "There's plenty of room now...unless you're enjoying it."

His hands immediately dropped to his sides. She shifted a little closer to the scornful poodle.

The digital display above the door went right past her floor. "By the way, where are we going, anyway?" Edward asked with exaggerated nonchalance.

"I don't know about you. I'm going to m car."

"Where s it? On the roof?"

"No, actually." The car stopped at the top floor. The doors slid open. "I got into this car because I was trying to get away from you." She granted him a sugary smile.

"Didn't you much good, did it, honey?" The blue-haired lady tossed over her shoulder as she and her poodle finally got off.

The ride back down to the parking level seemed longer than going up had, but both Bella and Edward kept their mouths shut.

When the elevator finally discharged them, Bella turned to him and aaranged her face into its most stubborn lines.

"Are you planning to follow me around around all day?"

One corner of his mouth curled into a crooked grin, Bella swooned at the sight. "Just until you tell me what I want to know. Unfortunately for both of us, you're the only lead I happen to have." The charm and humor in his face at that moment took her by surprise.

She dropped her obstinate stance, unable to maintain it while she was thinking how very attractive he was. She turned and marched resolutely toward her car.

Edward's steps fell in behind hers- an d halted at almost the same time. "I'll be damned," he said quietly

Bella felt sick dropping in the pit of her stomach, as she wished fervently that her eyes were deceiving her.

But they weren't, and in her heart she knew it. There where her beautiful new Mercedes should have been was a decade old pink Cadillac.

**A\N: chapter 2 :D**

review  
>Please?<p> 


	4. Chapter 3

There was an envelope on the dashboard. Scrawled across it were the words '_Bella, the key's are in your purse.'_

"So you never in your life heard of anyone named Esme," Edward accused from behind her.

Bella opened her purse and felt for her ring of keys. "I never said that. Not specifically anyway."

"Where is she?"

"I have no idea. But she's taken my car, and if you don't mind, I'd like to find out what's in that envelope." She withdrew her key ring. Two strange keys were on it; her own car keys were not. Sometime during the evening before, Esme managed the switch.

Edward waited, not interfering, as Bella unlocked the car door, reached in and took the envelope from the dashboard and slit it open. The paper was hotel stationery, but it smelled faintly of Esme's perfume.

_Bella,_

_Remember you did say you'd trade you Mercedes, even if you weren't entirely serious._

_The truth is, that a little makeup and a haircut is not enough to accomplish your total transformation. You need adventure, as I mentioned last night. I'm going to see that you get it._

_Your adventure should be an open-ended kind of thing-one you invent as it's happening. I think trying to get your beautiful car back will at least get you going in the right direction. But the whole point is that your open to whatever comes along._

_Also, I have a few things to straighten out in my own life, and I need a dependable car to do it. Yours will do fine._

_The Caddy's been overheating lately, but it should get you as far as Prescott, Arizona, where I need to see an old flame. Pay a visit to Bucky O'Neil at ten tonight, and I'll be n touch with you there._

_Yours Esme._

Very carefully, Bella folded the scented paper and placed it back in its envelope. She put the envelope in her purse.

"Well? Edward prompted grimly.

"My pride and joy. A Mercedes."

His mouth formed a bleak line. "New?"

She nodded.

"I suppose you'll want to call the police."

Bella Considered.

"Bella, are you all right?"

"Yes, fine," she mumbled distractedly. She leaned against the Caddy, and looked at the cement floor, folding her arms beneath her breast.

In a puddle that had dribble out from under the car, she could see the bright reflection of her carelessly pinned hair, like spun brown in the halogen lights from above. Her face itself though, was in shadow. In shadow like the real me, Bella thought, and like Esme's true intentions.

In a strange way, it all came down to belief. Did she believe in Esme?

If she believed in Esme, Bella would need to forget about the car for the time being-as well as the substantial financial investment it represented. Bella would need to have faith that her car, as well as her own immediate future, was in trustworthy hands.

On the other hand, if she didn't believe, then there was a flaky sixty-year-old woman out there somewhere driving her Mercedes.

Twenty-four hours earlier, there would have been no decision to make. The old Bella would have raced to a hone both and dialed the authorities.

"You know what?" she asked, half to her shadowed face and half to the man besides her.

"What?"

"It was beige."

Edward put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around until he could look into her eyes. "Bella, I know you're upset. If you're telling the truth, you're just lost a very valuable piece of machinery. But I hope you'll try to understand. I have reason to suspect that Esme is being manipulated by fringe group of dissatisfied women who don't have her best interests at heart."

Bella hardly heard Edward. She felt her lower lip quivering, and it wasn't with tears. "Edward. You poor man. You don't understand at all do you? My car was _beige_." she tossed her head back and let the laughter ring toward the steel-and-concrete ceiling overhead.

A marvelous sense of excitement and anticipation swept through her. If she was deluded, so be it. She was going to follow Esme's lure. It was going to be wild.

"Listen to me." Edward gave her shoulders a gentle shake. "Do you want to call the police?"  
>Her decision was, she became aware and Edward once more. His eyebrows were drawn together in a grim resigned expression.<p>

Bella felt sympathy for him.. he was worried about Esme. Suddenly, Bella wanted the deception cleared up-both his and hers. But she didn't quite know how to start, so she asked noncommittally, "Wouldn't you call the police, if you were in my position?"

He dropped his arms from her shoulders and glanced away. "I imagine so."

"But you don't want me to, do you?"

"Stealing a car is grand theft," he muttered, perhaps more to himself than to Bella. "She'll have to deal with the consequences. That's all." 

She touched his sleeve. "Edward?"

He turned, and in the tilt of his head, the green eyes sadness in their depths, she saw Esme. And she couldn't let him worry anymore. "I'm not calling the police. Esme and I traded cars, that's all."

He looked grimmer than ever, standing there so stiffly his expensive suit. "You sure?"

"Of course."

His expression left grimness behind and became completely impassive. "That's not what you said a few minutes ago."

"I was surprised, that's all. Trading cars was sort of a, er, open-ended kind of thing. I mean, it was something we talked about, but never really firmed up. You know?" Bella cringed inwardly at how forced her explanation sounded. If she were listening, she wouldn't believe herself for a moment.

Apparently neither did Edward. "Who are you, and more importantly, what are you to my mother?" the voice was one of steely command.

Bella decided she could no longer afford to take a defensive position in the conversation; she was just to culpable. But Edward Masen had a few things to answer for, to. "Oh, so no you're ready to admit that Esme your mother?"

"Since you obviously knew it all along," he countered without pause, "why didn't you say so?"

"I was waiting to see what you were up to. I care about Esme. And I want to respect her wishes. It's logical to assume that if she hasn't let you know where she is, it's because she doesn't want to see you right now."

Her argument was reasonable. Edward wisely decided to go back to his other point. "Who are Bella Swan? And how do you know my mother?"

A station wagon pulled in a few spaces over. A harried-looking young coupe and three rambunctious children climbed out of it. Bella waited until the parents had herded the kids to the elevator before giving him an answer tot he second half of his question.

"We're in a support group together. She's my secret sister."

"I should have known," he said softly

"We're committed to being therefor each other in difficult times. It's a way of extending and intensifying the benefits of our weekly meetings, to have one other woman you can count on no matter what."

"And, in this situation, who's being there for whom?"

She scrunched up her nose a this sarcasm, but did her best to make her reply reasonable. "Esme came to Palm Springs to help me out of a...negative frame of mind." inwardly Bella shook her finger at herself. She knew she should make a clean breast of herself, tell him the plain truth; she'd been jilted and she was nursing a broken heart. But it just wouldn't come out.

Edward Masen had no idea who she really was; plain, practical Bella, an unremarkable woman with about as much sex appeal as a profit-and-loss statement.

"You're a wonderful woman, Bella," her fiance had told her. "But i've fallen in love with someone else. I just can't see myself spending the rest of my life with a woman whos spice rack is always in alphabetical order. You're perfect and I just couldn't live with that day after day."

Edward Masen, on the other hand, didn't think she was perfecg. Far from it. To him, she was exciting-a forbidden siren who tempted every man in sight it was wonderful to be the seductress in a man's eyes for a change, even at the cost of complete honesty.

But lying was wrong. She shouldn't go on doing it.

As Bella waffled, Edward continued his attack. "where is Esme now?"

"I don't know, Edward. She came to my room last nightand she was gone when I woke up this morning

"Gone where?"

"She didn't say." it was another half truth.

"Let me see that letter," he said.

Bella shook her head. "The letter was meant for me, not you."

He held out his hand out. "The letter," he reiterated. "Now." he took a step toward her, no doubt trying to intimidate her with his masculine size and presence.

Irrational replaced indecision, as she backed toward the acres of chrome on the grill of the Cadillac. Edward Masen had no right to demand to read her mail. "I can just see you in the court room," she taunted, "turning every hostile witness in sight to a mass of quivering jelly."

He made a grab for her purse, she whipped it behind her back. "Damn it, Bella..."

With elaborate provocativeness, she leaned toward him and walked her figures up his shirt front. "Tell me why you're following her." she gave his tie a tug.

He wrapped his fingers around hers. The touch was electric. The smoky, hungry look moved in his eyes again as it had during breakfast. The fascination of the new Bella was working its magic. It took an effort of will, she could see, for him to hold tot he subject. But he managed.

"What is this support group?"

His hand was warm over hers, sending tingling sensations down her raised arm. "Nothing mysterious," she said. "A group of woman. We meet once a week, we share our feelings, out hopes and disappointments, what goes right and what goes wrong in our lives. We listen and talk and try to help each other." Her voice, she realized vaguely, was like purring of a petted cat.

"That's all?" the prodding question held an unmistakable husky undertone.

There was a war going on inside of him, Bella observed. His mind didn't trust her, but the rest of him was captivated by her. His little finger moved of her wrist. Bella, mesmerized by how wonderful it felt just to have his little finger doing that, drew a breath deep into her lungs and licked her lower lip.

"Yes, Edward. That's all."

His grip became infinitesimally tighter. "It would be nice if I could believe a word you say."

Bella's whole body seemed to be warm and shivery-cold at the same time. The sensation centered in the hand Edward grasped, and was sent out and down through her body by the tiny action of his stroking pinky finger. Mike, her two-timing fiance, had certainly never made her feel this way. She was having trouble thinking about anything but how to keep Edward making her feel this way.

"whether you believe me or not, I have Esme's wishes to consider," she told him, still sounding like a well-stroked cat. "She'll find you when she wants to see you."

"By then we both know it could be to late." Could eyes devour? Edward looked at her as if his could do just that.

"Too late for what?" Lord, Bella decided, she really did want to be devoured. Right now. In this parking lot. No matter how many families in station wagons drove up. It was naughty and irresponsible, but she wasn't herself. Not her old self, anyway.

"I think you know what," he said. And then he was suddenly speaking aloud what they both were thinking. "You'd better tell me not to kiss you. You'd better do it now."

She smiled, and she knew the smile was full of forbidden promises. "I think you should kiss me first. Then I'll make up my mind whether I should have let you or not."

"You're so bad," he said, and there was humor in his voice, along with the roughness of desire. "I've spent my whole life avoiding women like you. Women like my mother. You never think of the consequences of your actions."

"Um. Yes. Very smart, to avoid women like me," she lifted her mouth in brazen invitation. "After you kiss me, you can start avoiding me again. I promise."

His lips hovered a fraction above hers. "Women like you never keep their promises."

"Maybe I'm different."

"Tell me another one."

"I always keep my promises."

"Liar."

"But it's the truth..."

"Shut up." the command was infinitely tender.

"Really, Edward. I'm telling the-"

her protest were cut off, since at that moment Edward's self-control lost battle with his senses. His lips touched hers. Bella sighed in delight. Edward released her hand and clasped her waist, bringing her closer. He nudged her lower lip, and she opened her mouth just a little. His tongue traced the inner surface of her lips, in a warm caress.

Bella smiled against the kiss. Her arms fond their way up his firm, broad chest until they encircled his neck, letting her purse dangle behind him by its leather strap.

"I wasn't going to do this," he breathed against her mouth.

"Oh, I know," she murmured back. "But I'm so glad you did."

He made a low, hungry noise then, and his lips went from teasing exploration to command as they closed over hers. His tongue slid inside, tasting deeper secrets, and she pressed herself against him, feeling marvelously beautiful and desired. She let her tousled head fall back. He cupped it with his hand, holding her in lace so he could kiss her some more.

Then she lost his mouth, and a small sigh escaped her. But he was only laying a warm trail of tiny kisses down her neck to the collar of her white shirt,, and then back up again. Then his lips were on hers once more, slanting the other way, staking once again their erotic claim.

Bella heard the sound of leather soles on pavement and the drone of oncoming voices at the same time as Edward did. Three men in business suits were approaching. Lazily, Bella opened her eyes enough to watch Edward lift his head at the intrusion. His stern face was somewhat flushed, but the gleam of challenge sparked in his heavy-lidded eyes. The men very scrupulously pretended not to see what he and Bella were doing. He gathered Bella closer against his chest.

As the footsteps receded, Bella realized the thrill of the moment had passed with the interruption. The beautiful, erotic kiss was over. And she was left with the warmth of strong arms around her and the most inappropriate wish that those arms would never let her go.

Just as she was wishing that he might hold her forever, he released her. He put his hands on her waist and pushed her away, frowning sightly at the way she clutched her bag to her side, protecting it from anymore sudden grabs he might attempt.

She studied his face, which was still slightly flushed. She decided he looked tired, beneath the flush and the powerful aura of self-control he possessed. She wanted to reach out and stoke his face, tell him-

Bella stopped mid thought. She had nothing to tell him, she reminded herself firmly. She hardly knew him. And what he knew of her was a lie from the start.

Not a lie, she told herself. Not a lie a fantasy. And there's nothing wrong with a little fantasy now and then. Nothing wrong at all.

"Give me the letter," he said.

Bella took a fortifying breath and met his eyes. "Tell me why you're chasing her."

"All right," he muttered, "though I'm sure you already know. But I'll go through it step by step, and then you'll let me read the note."

"Correction. Then I'll decide whether to let you read the note."

Edward turned and leaned against the driver's door of the Cadillac, though he was clearly not the kind of man who ordinarily leaned on things. "She ran out on the best man she's ever known. His name is Carlisle Cullen and he's the senior partner of my law firm. They've been happy and they're totally inlove, so it makes no sense at all. Carlisle has locked himself in his room and won't see anybody, and none of Esme's friends have a clue where she's gone. She left a note that said her secret sister needed her and that she had to see an old boyfriend before she could marry Carlisle."

"You found me through a note?"

He nodded. "It said you were in a hotel in palm springs."

"Whew." Bella shook her head. "You went from-"

"-hotel to hotel until I found one she was registered in. I ran into you, and I was sure you knew something and that's all. I was right."

"What old boyfriend?" Bella wondered thinking of the note in her purse. Esme had mentioned a boyfriend in Prescott, too.

"I arrived here about 3:00 am,." Edward said, "and I found the boyfriend first. He was just as much in the dark about the whole thing as I am. His wife's story,though, was that Esme appeared at their frozen yogurt franchise early yesterday evening, kissed him on the mouth in front of several customers and left."

Bella considered this tidbit of information. "_Kissed_ him. But why?"

Edward's shrug spoke Volumes. "That's what I'm trying to find out. Now give me that letter."

Bella hoisted herself up on the Caddy's hood and crossed her legs at the knees like a teenager without a care in the world. Edward watched her with evident disapproval. She was positive the women he dated never sat on the hoods of cars. "Is this Carlisle person threatening to sue her for breach of promise or something?"

"Of course not." Edward's voice was curt. "Right now, Carlisle is too broken up to think of getting revenge even. And that's not his style anyway."

Bella put her hands behind her on the hood and leaned on them. "Then let Carlisle chase her down." she recrossed her legs and asked with finality, "Esme deserves to be in charge of her own life and affairs, Edward."

She could tell by the rock like hardness of his jaw that he was losing patience. "She's my mother. I introduced them. And she owns a successful hairdressing salon that was started with Carlisle's money." he impaled her on a lowering glare. "She's not going to lose that salon, Bella. It's her future, and her security."

Puzzled by the determination in his voice, she said, "I don't see what you're so concerned about. If the business is thriving, I'm sure it can run itself for awhile."

Edward spoke with iron firmness, each word clear and cold. "Understand me. I'm not allowing her to lose everything this time. No matter what tricks you and your support group have up your sleeves."

"What in the world are you talking about?"

"You're very good at playing the innocent. Too bad you haven't done or said anything that I can trust, or I just might be tempted to believe you."

"Edward. Just explain what you're getting on with, okay?"

"Weird groups," he said coldly. "Like yours. Like the hundred other causes and cults my mother's been involved with. Like the ashram in Oregon where they made her go barefoot in January and she ended up with no savings account and chronic bronchitis. Like the save-the-blue-necked-grackle in Santa Monica to which she donated five thousand dollars before learning there is no such thing as a blue-necked grackle to save in the first place. Or the crystal channelers in Vermont who charged her five figures for a bunch of rocks and an instruction sheet on how to connect up to her inner forces. Or the greasy-haired gigolo she invited to stay in her house because he swore he was her father in a past life. When he disappeared it was with half her belongings. The list is endless. Do I have to go on?"

Bella sighed,, thinking how tired he looked. "No, I guess not. And I'm sorry that Esme's been used, Edward.. but it hasn't really damaged her. You have to see that. Shes the most alive person I've ever met. And she's not bitter at all. So 'd have to say that, whatever she's done or is doing, it's probably the right thing for her. And she should be let alone to do it."

Edward took her hand and very deliberately pulled her off the hood of the car. "That's easy for you to say, especially if you're the next in line to take her for all she's worth."

Bella gaped up at him. "You think I'm after your mother's money."

His eyes were hard as emeralds. "You. Or that strange group you belong to. Or maybe you just don't want her to marry Carlisle to be happy. There are a lot of dissatisfied people in the world today who'll go out of their way to see that others don't find what really counts."

"Let me get this straight." Bella spoke as slowly and deliberately as Edward had. "You believe I'm a member of an anti commitment fringe group out to break up your mother's engagement and steal her hairdressing salon?"

"Naturally it sounds ridiculous when you put it that way. Now give me that letter." his hand shot out and closed around her purse.

She whipped it out of his grasp. "No."

"I could wring your neck." Edward spoke through clenched teeth. "I'd get off with a reprimand, once the judge heard the circumstances."

"If Esme wanted to see you-" Bella clutched her purse and restate her position"- she would have told you where she was going. It's clear to me that she needs to be left alone right now."

"I have been inordinately patient, Bella," he said in that so calm voice that Bella was beginning to realize meant he was seething with tightly leashed fury. "I've let you tease and flirt and bat your lashes all through breakfast. I've played sardines in the elevator, going up and going down. I've stood in this parking garage for-" he glanced at his gold watch"-twenty minutes while you broke down because your car was stolen and then decided it wasn't stolen and then seduced me into making a display of myself kissing you-"

"Just a minute here," she glared at him. "You weren't fighting it too hard, and we both know it."

"I'm not finished. And then, after you proved I couldn't resist you, you demanded to know why I was following my own mother as a condition of telling me where she was going. Well, I kept my end of the bargain. You know why I'm after her. Now tell me where she's gone."

"I can't. I wouldn't be right. She's-" Bella sought the right words"-very special to me.. and when she wants to see you, she'll contact you herself, I'm sure." she hooked her bag over her shoulder and brazenly stepped toward him. "I have to go now. Please get out the way s I can open the door."

"Give me the letter."

"Get out of my way." she reached for the door handle.

He calmly leaned against it, so she was forced to pull back her hand. "I intensely dislike what you're forcing me to do," he said.

"lease step aside." she did her best to look formidable.

For a moment hey just watched eachother, sizing eachother up, like all adversaries have done since the dawn of time. And then Edward moved.

With lightning swiftness that made Bella gasp, he grabbed her purse. Bella felt the strap slipping down her arm. In a split second, he would have it free.

With clutching fingers, she caught the strap before it escaped her completely. And, digging in her heels, she yanked- and fell backward, when the strap snapped in two.

"Ooof!: she landed on her backside in the puddle fell dirty water from the Caddy. "You overbearing jackass! Give me back my purse!"

"As soon as I see what she wrote," he replied. He'd already slipped the clasped and retrieved the envelope.

Bella knew she had to think fast. "That purse is my property!" She pretended to try and scrambling upright, and then let out a strangle cry. She clutched at her lower back.. "Oh! Oh, no..."

Edward, who had just smoothed the note open, paused to look at her.

She went on clutching her back and contorting her face into a grimace of pain. She groaned tightly, convincingly.

He set her purse on the roof of the car and knelt down next to her, wary but concerned. "Where does it hurt?" his voice was careful , but gentle, too. She could see that he was the the kind of man who would watch over the victim at the sight of an accident, whether he had anything to do with the situation or not. Bella felt like the sneaky troublemaker he believed her to be and almost dropped her ruse of injury and let him read the note. But then she thought of Esme, to whom her first allegiance was sworn.

"I...don't know. I tried to get up and ..."

"Don't move. You might just make it worse." he put a soothing hand on her shoulder. It was the hand holding the note.

She gazed up at him, right into his eyes. "Oh, Edward. I'm scared."

"Don't be. I'm sure you just twisted something. In a minute, the spasm will pass and you'll be fine."

"You really think so?"

"Certainly."

"Oh, Edward." she touched his face, as if doing so she could reassure her in her fear and pain. He blinked, and just as he did that, she moved her hand the fraction necessary to whip the note from his grasp.

He gazed at her in kind of numb disbelief for a moment, just the time she needed to stick the wad of papper in her mouth and reduce it to a soggy mass.

His dark eyebrows drew together, like the clouds before a storm. "You little witch."

She chewed diligently, watching his face as he considered forcing her jaws apart and extracting what was left of his mother's note. He apparently decided against such a thing.

She swallowed.

He stood up." I"d offer you my hand, but I'm sure you never needed it anyway."

With no difficulty, but some regret at having ad to deceive him once again, she scramble upright. "Edward, I had to do it."

Coldly, he took her purse from the roof of the car and held it out to her. "Tell me where \Esme's gone."

"I can't"

"You think you're just going to drive out of here in her car?"

"That;s exactly what I'm going to do."

"I could have you picked up. I could say you stole it."

"Come on, Edward. Then i'd just say we traded cars. When they found Esme, they'd learn I was telling the truth."

"Maybe, but you'd have to tell them where to find her, wouldn't you?"

She gazed at him levelly. "No. I wouldn't tell them a thing. I'd say just what I'm saying to you. That I don't know where she went and she'll turn up when she's ready. You see, I'm on a kind of open-ended vacation, Edward. And if I have to spend it in a palm springs jail, well, that's just how it's meant to be."

He shook his head, and there was a mussing expression on his stern, handsome face. "This isn't the end of it, Bella."

"After that kiss," she said with frankness, "I almost wish you were right."

His smile was no less attractive for being somewhat unwilling. "I am right. Count on it."

"No, Edward." she let herself go, let herself be the enchantress he saw when he looked in her yes. "I've learned not to count on anything. It's part of my nature, remember? I'm wild and I'm free and I live for th e moment."

"there's a lot more to life, Bella Swan," he answered quietly. "You'll miss the best part by always being on the run."

"And just what will I miss, Edward Masen?"

"Commitment, steadiness, a firm hand in yours. Someone to turn to in the darkest hours of the night..."

"Shh." she put her finger against his full mouth. "No more. You might tempt me. And I'm the one who does the tempting around here, remember?"

His lips moved against her touch, but before he could form words, she shook her head and dropped her hand, turning to the car. The pulled open the door and slid in behind he wheel.

To distract herself from thoughts of this man who stood watching her through the side window, she set the practical side of her mind to ticking off the exigencies of the adventure ahead.

She needed a map to find her way to Prescott. And somehow she needed to reach a man names Bucky O'neil. She also had to get her suitcases and checkout of the suite, but she couldn't do that until she'd safely shaken Edward.

The pink leather upholstery held the scent of Esme's perfume. And Bella smiled to herself as she started the engine. Edward knocked on the window, and she rolled it down

"You could save yourself a lot of trouble just by being honest."

"Ah." she batted her eyelashes. "But what fun would that be?" she backed out of the space and headed for the exit ramp, sparing only a single regretful glance for the handsome, well-dressed man who watched her go. By the time he reached his own vehicle and tried to follow, she'd be long out of sight.

An hour later, she had her route mapped out, her suitcases in the trunk, and she was roaring her way down the interstate 10 on her way to the state highway that would lead her to Prescott.

The gently rolling desert that sped past on wither side was dotted with the proud sentinels of saguaro cactus and the spiny, re-tipped blooms of ocotillo. The trip to Prescott, according to her map, would take five hours. If all went well, she would be there by 6:00 that should leave her enough time to find the mysterious Mr.O'neill

Bella kept her eye on the temperature gauge, but so far it stayed safely in the medium range. She went without the air conditioner, just to be on the safe side. Instead, she rolled the front windows down and turned on the radio and sang along to country and western songs while the hot desert wind whipped around her face.

She'd crossed the border to Arizona and was almost to the state 60 turnoff when she realized that the burgundy Chrysler in her rear view mirror had been there for a long time. She slowed down and switched to a slower lane. The Chrysler did the same. She sped up, and the Chrysler followed suit

Utterly disgusted, she stuck her arm out the window and signaled the car. Alongside the Caddy. It slid into place and Edward rolled down the window and waved at her.

"i did see the word Prescott, in the letter" he said to her.

Bella put her foot to the gas and left him behind. She turned the radio up full blast and sang at the tops of her lungs and refused to decide whether she was ecstatic or upset that he hadn't given u[p

Unfortunately, she forgot to watch the temperature gauge, and by the time she remembered to check it, she was barreling down state highway 60 with nothing in sight for miles but cactus and sagebrush and the burgundy Chrysler that she couldn't seem to shake.

**A\n you lucky people! I stayed up until 2:30 finishing this!  
>So pleaaaaaaseeee review. Pretty please?<strong>


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N sorry for taking so long to update! A lot of things have been happening. I'll try and update sooner.**

**This chapter is for 909me1! Because she reviews quickly an awesomely! :D**

**Enjoy!**

Muttering an unladylike expletive under her breath, Bella pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. She was afraid to turn off the engine, having read somewhere that overheated cars should be allowed to cool down a bit before being shut off.

She had either heard wrong or it was just too late for letting the car idle to matter, because she could now see steam escaping from under the hood.

As she considered her next move, the Chrysler slid in behind her. Edward jumped out, sped to her driver's door, and reaching in the open window, yanked the keys from the ignition.

"I was just thinking I should do that myself." With elaborate nonchalance, she studied a fingernail that had been chipped in the tussle back at the hotel garage. In the desert silence, the car wheezed and groaned like a winded moose. "Maybe we should look under the hood," she said after a moment.

"Maybe you want a few third-degree burns." He gave her a look so patronizing that she wished she had a large blunt object to hit him with. "You've got to let it cool down first, and then I'd have to predict that it won't be capable of taking you anywhere near where you want to go."

"I do adore your positive attitude."

He gave her one of those crooked smiles. "It's still about a hundred miles from Prescott, and I imagine it's desert most of the way. This car won't get you there, I'm afraid."

"You don't sound very regretful."

"I suppose you'll have to ride with me."

She blew on her chipped fingernail. "I could just sit tight. Somebody else will come along."

"If you're lucky." Very neatly, he slid out of his suit jacket, slung it over his shoulders and proceeded to roll up his shirt cuffs. His tanned forearms had bronze hairs on them. They looked very strong. Bella decided he probably played tennis or squash at some exclusive L.A. Club at least three times week. "Whew," he said, really rubbing it in, "sure is hot out here."

He was putting it mildly. Without the whipping wind created by the speeding car, it was ninety degrees at least. Bella's hair, which had slipped out of its loose confines completely lay damp against her neck. She casually began stroking the tangled mass upward, re-pinning it as haphazardly as before. "I've always loved the heat," she purred. "It's so...sensual."

"Say that in an hour or two when your lips start cracking and your eyeballs go dry." Still behaving in an infuriatingly jaunty manner, he un-knotted his tie and slid it from around his neck. Then he tossed the keys in the air and caught them. "Are your suitcases in the trunk?"

She said nothing. There was no need to. She was going to be stuck riding with him. He knew it, and she knew it. He strolled to the trunk of the car and transferred her bags to the Chrysler. Then he cheerfully tossed his coat and tie in the back seat and returned to where she sweltered behind the wheel of the wheezing Cadillac.

"Let's be on our way." he swung open her door.

"Could you please stop being so jovial? It's really getting on my nerves."

He reached for her hand and gently, but firmly, pulled her from the car. "Might as well make the best of an un-pleasant situation."

"Might as well gloat a little, is what you mean."

He merely grinned in response. Then, pausing only to slip the Cady's keys beneath the floor mat, he led her to the Chrysler.

The interior of his car was marvelously cool. She settled into the leather seat with an internal sigh of contentment. Edward got in on his side and turned the engine over. The air conditioner hummed. Already, Bella felt her clammy skin cooling.

"Please fasten your seat belt," a masculine voice issued from somewhere in the dashboard.

Bella groaned. "Even your car likes giving orders" Edward granted her an overbearing glance. "All right, all right," she said and did as the car had said.

They glided back out into the sun-shimmered highway. In the rear view mirror, Bella watched the Cady until it was only a speck gleaming sliver and pink. Then it disappeared

Edward saw her watching the old car fade from sight. "I'll call for a tow truck," he said, picking up his car phone.

Bella said nothing as Edward arranged to have the Cadillac towed back from Los Angeles where Esme could reclaim it later. When he hung up, he made no more attempts at small talk. Apparently he felt complaisant now that he had the situation-and Bella-firmly in hand. They drove on through the desert heat, enclosed in their little cocoon of cool air and mutual silence.

More than once, she glanced at his profile, so strong and determined-looking as he stare out through the tinted windshield at the flat road ahead. He must be tired. Chasing the elusive Esme, he's had no time for sleep in at least the past 24 hours. Still, he appeared utterly alert.

"Do you want me to drive for a while?" she suggested, her voice hesitant in the stillness between them. "You could take a nap."

He shot her a glance. "No, thanks. I'm fine."

"You mean you don't trust me."

"Partly."

"Atleast you're honest."

"Somebody around here has to be."

"I'm not even going to dignify that remark with a response."

"Glad to hear it." he sparred her another jade-green glance. "Take a nap yourself if you want. It's still over an hour to Prescott."

"Maybe I will."

Bella leaned her head back against the smooth leather and closed her eyes. The wheels whirred beneath her and the air conditioner hummed. After a while, she was vaguely aware that they were climbing, and that the road had more turns than before. She let her body roll with the movement of the car, not quite awake and not quite asleep.

When she opened her eyes again, they were surrounded by pines. They left the desert for national forest. Edward was resetting the clock as he drove.

"We lost an hour back there at the Arizona border," he explained. The digital display now read 6:30.

Just then they past the Prescott city limits sign. Edward pulled into the first gas station they came to and fueled up in the full service lane.

As the attendant took Edward's credit card, Bella pushed open her door.

"Where do you think your going?" Edward demanded.

"Even femme fatales have to visit the rest room occasionally," she replied sweetly. "Do you mind?"

"Just don't get any ideas. I'm right with you until we get Esme."

Bella quietly closed the door in his face. She had to go into the station's convenience store to get the key from the gray-haired lady clerk. Edward actually got out of the car and stood right outside the glass door where he could see her. Then he stayed there while she went to the ladies room a few feet away.

Bella used the facilities, reapplied her lipstick and wondered how in the world she was going to ditch him again and also track down the mysterious Mr .O'Neill by 10:00. still in the dark as to what to do next, she returned the key to the clerk, who looked at her rather oddly, she thought.

And why not? Excluding captured fugitives from justice, few grown women required an escort to go to the bathroom. Edward appeared oblivious to her disgusted grimace as she strode right past him. He followed close behind her back to the car.

"What now?" He asked, when they were both inside once more.

Good question, she answered silently. "Let's, um, just drive around town for a while, all right?"

"Where and what time are you meeting Esme?"

"You are relentless."

"Where and when?"

Tossing him a guelling frown, Bella did her best to remember the wording of Esme's note, not easy since she hasn't exactly had time to study it in depth before being forced to eat it. It had said something like visit Bucky O'Neill at ten tonight, but there'd been absolutely no explanation as to how to find this man.

Could he be well known in Prescott? Perhaps some sort of local celebrity? Bella stared blindly out her side window, thinking.

Just then, the clerk who'd watched so suspiciously came out of the store with the rest room key in her hand. Seeing her chance to question someone presumably from Prescott without her unswerving inquisitor listening in, Bella just leaped out of the car.

"Where the hell are you going?" Edward was right behind her.

"Left my lipstick in the ladies room." she tossed over her shoulder. She slipped around the white-painted metal door just as the clerk tried to shut it.

As the door closed and locked, Bella leaned against it. She found herself facing the single sink and the wary clerk who'd backed against the wall between the towel dispenser and the gray plastic wastebasket.

"Don't be afraid. I just want to ask you a question," Bella tried gamely.

The woman watched her, narrowed eyed over the rims of her glasses. "You just step aside, miss, and let me out of here," she said.

Bella tried a congenial smile. "It's not what you think really."

Edward rapped sharply on the door. "Bella, this is pointless. You can't get out without going through me." his voice came through slightly muffled, but quite understandable.

"I'll be out in a minute," she called back amiably, then she focused on the clerk. "It's nothing illegal, I mean, I didn't _do_ anything. He's just looking for his mother, and he thinks I know where she is."

The steel door rattled. "Bella! Open this door!"

"Why don't you tell him, then?" asked the clerk.

"She doesn't want to found."

"Bella!"

"Settle down, young man!" The clerk piped up. "She'll be out in a minute!"

The door handle immediately stopped rattling. Silence came from outside the door.

Bella and the clerk regarded each other. "Thanks," Bella said, then grinned again, sheepishly. "He's now mortified. Your voice reminded him that he's made a fool of himself in public. Edward Mason never makes a fool of himself."

The clerk grinned back. "Know him that well, do you?"

"We met this morning."

"Love at first sight?"

"No. he's not my type at all."

The clerk made a humphing sound in response to that. Then she asked "Now what's your question?"

"Oh, right." Bella lowered her voice, to make sure it wouldn't travel to listening ears outside. "Have you ever heard of a man named Bucky O'Neill?"

The woman grunted. "Maybe I didn't go to college, but I do know my history."

"History?"

"Captain William Bucky O'Neill. Of the rough riders. Fought the war with Spain."

Bella gulped. "The Spanish-American war?"

"You bet."

"But that was back at the turn of the century. That would make Bucky O'Neill-"

"Dead," the woman said finality. "He died in the war. He was a hero."

Bella let out a long breath. Now what? She thought. Visit bucky O'neill indeed. Was Esme playing some kind of joke on her? If so, Bella didn't get it.

The woman went on. "We've even got a statue dedicated to him. Over in the town square on Gurley."

Bella had let herself slump against the door. Now she snapped to attention. "A statue?" The joke was starting to make sense.

The woman shifted from one foot to the other. "You bet. Now, is that all you wanted to know?"

"The statue. Where is it?"

"Just keep going on the road you're on, to another center of town. Courthouse Square at Gurley and Marina. Can't miss it." the clerk was beginning to look uncomfortable. "Now, if you don't mind..."

"Oh. Oh, yes. Sorry." Bella pulled the door open, then paused to look back at the clerk one last time. "Thank you."

"No problem." she winked. "And good luck with that man who isn't your type at all."

the door closed behind her and Bella found herself face-to-face with a little over six feet worth of annoying male. Edward immediately captured her arm and began herding her toward his car. "That was ridiculous thing to do, Bella. I'm running out of patience."

Bella dug in her heel. "So am I. Let go of my arm." surprisingly he did. She took that small victory over his recent dominance of her and ran with it. "I appreciate you giving me a lift here. But now I can fend for myself. I want my things out of your trunk now, please."``

"Bella, don't be childish."

"I am not being childish, Edward Mason. I'm an adult who has perfect right to go where she wants when she wants with whomever she wants. And I don't want to go anywhere else with you. Is that clear enough? Now please get my things from your trunk."

"I'm not going to go away," he said grimly.

"We'll see. Now, open your trunk."

Short of using physical force, there wasn't much more he could do. He opened the trunk for her and set the suitcases near the phone kiosk where she instructed him too. Then he got in his car and started it up. Bella couldn't believe he was giving in so easily, and she was right. He wasn't he was only moving the car out of the fill-up lane. He pulled in right beside her suitcases and sat there, glowering, while she called a taxi.

The Ace City cab arrived in minutes. After she and her suitcases were safely inside, she asked for a hotel near courthouse square.

"Ma'am, do you know there's a guy following us?" the cabby asked as they jockeyed through the light early-evening traffic.

Bella turned and glanced at Edward's car. "Unfortunately, yes. Ignore him."

"Oh, it's like that," the cabby said knowingly.

Bella shrugged and looked out the window. Within minuted, she was deposited at the Hassayampa Inn, a splendid modified Spanish structure of ruffle brick in shades of deep red and blue. Copper cornices gleamed in the fading sunlight, and the trim was white with plaster medallions set at intervals near the roof.

Bella admired the architecture and ignored the Chrysler that had slid in right behind the cab.


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N what is this? An update the very next day? Why yes it is ;) I did all the house work got everything done and then I decided to write, and kept writing. Then I realized I had the whole chapter done and was like oh! Well read...and review! Since it came so quickly!**

**ENJOY!**

"What a lovely old hotel," she said to the driver.

A uniformed bellman appeared and loaded her bags onto a cart.

"You're lucky it's May," the cabdriver said. "In June and July it's hard to find a last-minute vacancy in this town." he pointed across the street. "And there's the square. In walking distance, like you wanted."

Bella handed him the metered amount plus a generous tip. Then she entered the doors of the hotel. She checked into a small but beautifully appointed room on the second floor and went back to the lobby after getting rid of her suitcases. Edward dogged her every step.

She strolled unconcernedly out onto Marina Street. She would have to find a way to lose him, but right now he had no way of knowing she was on a foray to scout out the location where Esme would contact her.

Courthouse Square was a place of maple trees and thick green grass. The statue of Bucky O'Neill on a spirited horse reared up at the toe-end of a horseshoe-shaped walk into which was set a time line of important events in Prescott history. Aware every moment of the man who dogged her steps, Bella made a great show of reading the tiles set into the walk.

At the statue itself, she stopped and slowly let her gaze travel upward. The plaque at the base declared it one of the finest equestrian monuments in the world, and Bella did find it beautiful, the powerful raring of the horse and its Rough Rider, all action and excitement cast forever in rich bronze.

She studied her immediate surroundings. Trees. Grass. The horseshoe-shaped walk. Benches. A gazebo not far away. The big stoned courthouse loomed behind the statue. To her right lay Gurley Street and a mailbox and a set of phone kiosks. Behind her was Marina Street and the Hassavampa Inn.

She fervently hoped this was the place.

Well, she told herself, if it wasn't the place she'd find out at ten o'clock.

Now to get rid of Edward...

He'd taken a sit on a nearby bench. She decided, rather regretfully, that the best way to shake him would be to deceive him again, to let him think she'd given in to his refusal to leave her alone and then, later, nearer the appointed time, to slip away when he least suspected it.

She turned and, very slowly, strolled toward him. He watched her, his green gaze wary.

"You're not going to give up, are you?" she asked when she stood looking down at him.

"No.: he was facing the sun, which hung heavy in the western sky above the pine-blackened hills. He shaded his eyes with his arm. "Just tell me when and where."

"I'm starving," she said, and held out her hand. "Let's eat."

Shaking his head, smiling in spite of himself, he grasped her outstretched palm. Once again, she felt that curling warmth at his touch, and she let her mouth curve into a come-hither smile. It felt good, to be utterly free for t first time in her life and to be touching someone who made her feel as reckless as a Rough Rider on a powerful stallion.

Edward was squinting at her, against the red ball of sun. "You won't tempt me off my guard again," he said. His voice had that delicious roughness that made her want to rub herself against it.

"The lady in the hotel lobby said that's Whiskey Row over there." She pointed toward Gurley Street. "After dark all those bars open and everyone of them has a band. I'm going to eat, Edward. And then I'm going dancing. Want to come?"

He grunted. She laughed, pulled him to his feet and led him back to the hotel.

The boutique ion the lobby was open so she made him wait while she bought some of the bright new clothes she'd promised herself, including a pair of white cowboy boots and a bag to match, some tight red jeans, a silky camisole top and a rawhide jacket with plenty of fringe. She modeled the clothes for him, twirling between the blue velvet chair where he sat and a long dressing mirror.

"It's exactly your style," he gave out grudgingly after a moment.. his voice tried to be condescending, but she saw the heat in his eyes as his gaze unwillingly traveled up the formfitting line of the crimson jeans.

She turned to the clerk. "I think I'll wear this outfit now," she said. The clerk agreed to have her other new clothes, as well as the ones she'd been wearing, returned to her room.

After a quick trip to Edward's car where he once again donned his coat, they ate in the hotel dining room which lay beyond Peacock Alley, a hallway tiled in peacock blue, of which the hotel was justly proud.

Bella ordered a nice big bottle of Chardonnay, but Edward refused to touch it. Edward watched her chatter happily through the meal, while he chewed the excellent food stolidly, looking as if he couldn't afford t relax his guard for a split second.

It was near nine o'clock when they finished eating. "Now, we go dancing," she announced, once they stood beneath the plaster medallions in front of the old hotel.

She pranced off down the street toward the music that could already be heard on nearby Gurley. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the rearing shadow of Bucky O'Neill in the night-lighted square. Somehow, she had to get rid of Edward and be waiting beneath the bronze horse's hoofs within a hour.

When they reached Whiskey Row, Bella's hoped of leaving her escort behind rose considerably. Though it had seemed just an ordinary commercial street in the daylight, on Saturday night the place clearly came alive. Already, good-natured partiers jostled each other as they went from club to club. If luck was with her, within the hour the crowds would really thicken,. It would be easy to lose Edward in the crush and sneak across the street.

Dragging Edward behind her, she followed a group of revelers dressed in shiny boots and spotless hats into the Palace, the first saloon that struck her fancy.

Beyond the long, crowded bar the big room inside was opened up to a pine-paneled dance hall. The band at the far wall played fast country music while couples two-stepped and a few adventurous souls practiced intricate footwork of a line dance across the wooden floor.

High tables and a few stools along the wall provided a place to watch the action./ Bella quickly claimed a rare clear space and hoisted herself up on the stool. Edward, looking completely out of place in his expensive suit,, stood right beside her. His expression defined the word stoic

A waitress in jeans and a tank top asked what they'd have.

Edward shook his head. Bella ordered a strawberry daiquiri and heard Edward's knowing snort.

The waitress left them. "What was that sound about?" Bella demanded.

He moved a little closer, so they could talk while the band played. "What?"

"That noise you made when I ordered my drink."

He shrugged. "Nothing. I just knew you were going to order something pink with an umbrella in it."

She slipped out of her jacket and tossed it across the little table in front of her. More than one set of masculine yes took a slow walk over her bare, gleaming shoulders in the skimpy camisole."Put that jacket back on," Edward said impassively.

"Why?"

He snared the soft leather and draped it over her shoulders. "Let's just say there's a draft in here."

Her pink drink arrived. She took a quick sip and then slidoff the stool. "I want to dance, Edward. And with you standing there like my keeper, no one's going to dare ask me." defiantly, she slipped the jacket from her shoulders once again and tossed it on the table. "So looks like you'll have to do for a partner-or would you rather I pulled a Sadie Hawkins and did the asking myself?"

Apparently, he preferred taking her into his arms to letting her two-step out of his reach with some obliging cowboy. He led her out onto the wooden floor.

The band started playing a slow song. Around them, couples shifted into a slower, more intimate rhythm, their bodies moving closer to one another. Edward, true to form, assumed a rigid ballroom stance. You could have wedged a beach ball between his cordovan belt and Bella's denim waistband.

As always seemed to happen when she touched him, Bella felt her pulse pick up. And she felt that naughtiness, that wildness that was so unlike her real self, come all the more to the fore. Something about all the control Edward exhibited made her want to all she could to break it down.

In a smooth, slithery movement, she circled his neck with both hands and brought her body up against his.

"Bella," he said. It was supposed to be a reprimand, but the huskiness in his voice betrayed him

His body was so nice and solid. Pressing against him made her feel secure,and yes excited. She lifted her head and tipped her face up to his. "I've changed my mind, about your name," she said.

He looked down at her, saying nothing, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a questioning expression.

"Maybe Mason does fit after all. Maybe there's some dashingness way down inside you that you haven't quite been able to extinguish, lie an ember that just won't die. A sleeping spark."

"Next you'll be telling me it's your mission to fan that ember into a flame." his voice was rueful, bordering dangerously tender.

She traced little figure eights on the back of his neck with one fingernail. "I wish..."

"Go on."

That was once in my life a man would look at the real me the way you're looking at me now. Her mind whispered the words, but of course she didn't say them.

"Hey, why so sad suddenly?" He was tipping her chin up so she looked in his eyes once again.

"Oh, Edward..."

His fingers slid backward, cupping her neck beneath the wild spill of her hair, cradling her face in a drip that was at once achingly sensual and full of gentle understanding. "You can tell me."

"No." a single traitorous tear welled over and trailed down her cheek. He brushed at it, in a stunningly compassionate caress, with the pad of his thumb. "I'm sorry, Edward. I just can't."

Miraculously, he seemed to accept her refusal to confide in him. He pulled her head against his broad chest and held it there, saying no more. She listened to the steady, reassuring beat of his heart, her sadness fading as the dance came to an end.

As a fast number began again, he led the way for once pulling her back to the little table. He scooped up her jacket, draped it on her shoulders, and headed for the door, still firmly holding her hand.

"Where are we going?" she asked, struggling to get the jacket on, as they passed the long bar and went out into the brightly lit street.

"Somewhere quiet," he tossed the words back over his shoulder as he pulled her along.

He plowed through crowds. "No,, wait, I want to dance some more." he ignored her protest, and Bella knew why. She sounded totally unconvincing. The emotions that had surfaced in the Palace had somewhat dampened her party spirits.

"We'll go across the street," he said, not pausing in his purposeful stride. "There are a few benches by the statue."

Bella had to restrain herself from groaning aloud. Without knowing it, he was planning to drag her right to the place where Esme would contact her in-she darted a glance at her watch-twenty-five minutes.

"No, Edward!" she stopped stock-still just before they reached the corner, and jerked her hand from his grasp. She shoved the hand into the other arm of the fringed jacket, which she'd been only half wearing as he towed her down the street.

He turned to her. "What the matter now?"

"I came here to dance, and I'm going to have a good time."

People milled around them, but Edward ignored them completely. "Bella, be honest with yourself for once. You were upset back there. You need to deal with it. The time comes when the party has to end, and you have to face the things that are really bothering you."

Saying nothing in response, Bella turned and walked away, around the corner, down the darkened side street in the opposite direction from the park and the hotel. Behind the corner building, there was a small parking lot rimmed by a low brick wall. Bella sat on the low wall and stared down at her new white boots.

Slowly, Edward came after. He sat beside her.

For a time, neither spoke. Muted on the night air came the cacophony sounds from the bands and milling throngs around the corner.

Bella debated with herself. She was tired of running, tired of trying to keep one step ahead of the relentless man besides her. He'd been so tender, so understanding in those few moments on the dance floor, that she was having second thoughts about keeping him from Esme.

When you came right down to it, she found herself reasoning, Esme had never said a word about her own problems when she'd appeared at Bella's hotel room last night. It wasn't as if Esme had actually asked Bella to keep her whereabouts a secret. Last night, Esme hadn't even mentioned her son-let alone the man she'd left waiting at their engagement part.

And it wasn't as if Edward were some kind of monster, after all. He was truly concerned about his mother, about her welfare and her future, and that was why he was being so overbearingly persistent about finding her.

Why not, Bella wondered, let mother and son settle this problem between themselves? Why not step aside and let them handle their family matters without her interference?

She cast him an oblique glance. He looked calm and unruffled as always, sitting beside her on the low brick wall.

"Ready to talk about it?" he asked.

"Do you realize you haven't asked me where or when I'm meeting your mother in least two hours?"

A smile played on his lips. "Asking you hasn't been terribly successful u to this point. And besides, I think if you start being honest with me, you might be honest about everything, including where I can

find Esme."

Not everything, she thought, her emotions equal parts defiance and sadness. Because I can't help it, Edward. I love the way you look at me it's just what I need right now, to know a man sees me as everything sexy and feminine and dangerous that there is in the the world. I want to go on feeling this way, for I little bit longer, just a little bit more...

"All right." Bella stood up. "Let's go."

"Where to?"

"You want a chance to talk to Esme, don't you?"

He stood up besides her. "Lead the way."


	7. Chapter 6

"Esme said she would contact you here at ten, and that's all?" Edward asked.

"The letter said visit Bucky O'Neill and she'd contact me there. Since the man's been dead for almost a century, this statue was the closet I could come."

They were sitting on a bench a few feet from the statue in question. It was five minutes to ten.

"I still don't get it, Bella. Can you tell me now what the hell is going on?"

She looked at him levelly. "Edward, I really don't know."

It was the truth when she came right down to it. She had no idea what was driving Esme. As for her own actions, it was as if another, totally different woman had come alive inside hr. and the old Bella often had no inkling what the new Bella would do next.

"It's something to do with that group you two belong to, isn't it? They're manipulating you both and you've taken a vow of secrecy."

"Edward, for a solid citizen, you certainly have a vivid imagination."

"I'm concerned about my mother." he captured her glance. "And heaven help me, I'm starting to feel the same way about you."

"Concerned, you mean?"

"Yes."

She assumed a pose of bad-girl bravado. "Don't be. I can take care of myself."

He just shook his head. "Your life's a mess. Look at you. It's obvious you don't even know day to day where you'll lay your head at night. What about your job-do you have a job?"

"Yes."

"Is your boss holding it for you until you decide to come to work again?"

"I'm on vacation, Edward. And I own my own business, anyway."

"What kind of business?"

she thought of her bookstore, of the neat rows of shelves labeled fiction and nonfiction, history and psychology and gardening and art. He'd never for a moment believe her if she told him that Bella Swan owned a bookstore in Westwood, usually wore her hair in a bun, and preferred PBS to commercial television.

"I'm in communications,"

"Bella-"

she didn't let him continue. "Look. You wanted to talk to Esme. That's what we're here for. If you want to be concerned about something, why don't you worry if this is the right place at all, and if she'll even show her face once she sees that you're here?"

"All right, Bella. If that's how you want it." he sounded so infinitely patient and sympathetic that she once again felt the wild Bella taking over.

If it was Edward Mason's mission to save bed Bella Swan, she thought, then maybe it was naughty Bella's calling to let the air out of his stuffed shirt.

She nimbly scrambled to her knees on the bench and put her mouth against his ear. "If I told you how I really wanted it, would you give it to me just that way?"

she heard his sharp intake of breath as he turned his head toward her, pulling back at the same time, like a man scenting danger, facing it, but claiming distance.

And then he smiled. "You are bad." wisely, he didn't answer her question. "And, all right, we'll change the subject."

She resumed a more decorous position on the bench. "Thank you."

They waited in the silence as the minutes crawled past.

"It's ten after ten," he said.

Bella shrugged, wondering wistfully how her Mercedes was holding up. "As I said before, I'm not even sure this is the right place."

Just the, the phone in one of the kiosk across the lawn by the sidewalk rang. For a split second, their gazes locked. And then Edward was up and sprinting across the grass

Since she was too late to get there before he did anyway, Bella followed at a more sedate pace.

"Just what the hell is going on?" she heard Edward demanding into the mouthpiece in an intense, low voice as she came u beside him of the sidewalk. "Tell me where you are."

Bella stepped back, turning away, to let Edward have some privacy as he spoke with his mother.

His voice rose. "Esme, be reasonable. I'm concerned about you. Listen, whatever it is, tell me. Let me help you-" suddenly, he stopped arguing. For a moment, he said nothing. Then, "If you'll just-all right. Don't hang up. All right." His tone held total resignation.

"She wants to talk to you," he said.

Bella took the receiver.

"Hello, sister," a low throaty voice said in her ear. "Better let me do the talking, okay?"

Bella made a small noise of agreement.

"my goodness, darlin'" Esme went on, "I'm sorry about this. Believe me, I would have told you my own situation if I'd thought Edward would have any way to track me down. I'm just a little stunned, to tell the truth. I need some time to rethink this thing-your Mercedes is fine by the way. Is the Cady holding up okay?"

"It died in the desert," Bella said flatly.

"Oh, no. but you managed anyway."

"Edward was there."

"Well." an airy sigh came from the other end of the line. "Whatever works"

Bella cupped her had over the receiver and whispered, so the nearby and glowering Edward couldn't make out what she said. "What now, Esme?" her low tone was as grim as the words.

"I need to think."

"Would you mind thinking fast?"

"Okay. Look. I'll be in touch again tomorrow morning, say seven o'clock. The Boca Grande Cafe in Winslow. I know you could probably strangle me by now, but if you would just..."

Esme's voice trailed off, as if she couldn't quite bring herself to ask so much. Bella realized that it was Esme's turn to need reassurance.

"Anything," Bella said firmly. "Just tell me."

"Keep Edward with you until I decide what I should do, but don't let him come with you to the cafe in the morning. Bella was silent. "I know, he's persistent," Esme went on.

"That's putting it mildly," Bella remarked.

"Do you think you can handle it?"

A few feet away, Edward was eying her suspiciously. "Mission accepted," she said.

"Thanks, pal," said the husky voice in her ear. "Tomorrow, then." The line went dead.

"Where is she" Edward asked the question in a monotone, as if he felt obliged to do so, though he knew he'd get no satisfactory answer.

"She didn't say." Bella almost hated herself for having no more to tell him than hwat he expected. She added after a wordless moment, "I have to go."

"Where?"

"I-"

"I know. You can't tell me."

She let her answer be found I her silence.

"I'll have to rent a car," she said, as if talking to herself.

"No you won't," he said, as she'd known he would. "I'll take you."

She shook her head, knowing she mustn't go along that easily. She thought, deception upon deception, and wondered where and how it would end. She was going to have to ditch him briefly in the morning, and it was important that he have no clue of when or where she might do that. Keeping him totally in the dark as to what she was up to seemed the only way she'd have a chance of getting him to let down his guard at the appropriate time.

Unfortunately, everything she didn't say was bound to make him sure that she and his mother were being manipulated by some mysterious cult of man-hating women.

"It's late to try and get a car," he argued reasonably.

She pretended too consider. "I really couldn't tell you anything, Edward. You'd just have to go where I asked you to take me."

"Fine," he said.

"Does that mean you'll stop the unending questions?"

"That means I'll take you wherever you want to go. I'm not going to give up trying to find out what the hell's going on. Promising I will would be a lie." he gave her a chiding frown and added, "I've always detested lies."

His dig hit her where it hurt. The real Bella Swan prided herself on her scrupulous honesty. But somehow the naughty Bella seemed to spend all her time rearranging the truth to suit her own needs.

Across the street, the bands played on. Bella tapped her foot to a drumbeat that pounded louder than the rest.

"You detest lies," she tossed at him, her hostility a product of her guilt. "So you're saying you detest me, right? Because you think I'm lying."

"I know you lying. But no, I don't detest you, Bella."

His tone of extreme forbearance set her teeth on edge. Not even for Esme's sake, she thought, could she put up with this.

"Forget it." she spun on her heel." I'll get my own transportation."

he was besides her within three steps, catching her arm and whirling her around to face him. "All right. I promise I'll try to stop asking questions."

She pulled her arm from his grip. "It won't work. You know it, I know it. You're not going to give up until I lead you to Esme."

He grunted. And then he smiled. "You still need a ride tonight. And I'm still available."

Enchanted once again by the charm and humor that lurked beneath his facade of puritanical self-control, she replied, "Let me get my things."

###

There were two road that would take them to the Interstate 40 and eventually to Winslow. Bella chose Highway 89, which seemed the most direct. The road wove through the mountains and down into the desert again.

As they left the trees behind and the land opened up before them, Bella stared silently out the window, mesmerized by the austere beauty of the desert world that fled by on either side. By the silvering light of the waning moon, the dry earth seemed to toll on forever, dotted here and there with clumps of sagebrush, proud saguaros and the tortured shadows of the Joshua tress. She did her best to simply appreciate the stark scenery and not even try to figure out how she was going to evade the man beside her when morning came.

They began climbing again, up into the gray-green stands of Ponderosa pines. By midnight, they reached the interstate and sped off to Flagstaff.. there, she made Edward stop at a phone booth where she pretended to place a call.

"I have to be in New Mexico by noon tomorrow," she said when she rejoined Edward at the car. It was a total fabrication, meant to throw him off guard.

"Where in New Mexico?" he asked, taken in.

She shook her head. "You know I can't say."

He took the map from the floor of the car and spread it on the good. "It's less than two hundred miles to the New Mexico border," he said. "Why don't we call it a night here in Flagstaff and try for a few hours sleep? We can get an early start and-"

She shook her head again. "Let's go a little father, okay? We're still to far away for me to feel comfortable to stop."

he shrugged. "You know where you're going." she pretended not to notice the irony in his words as she settled back into the passenger seat.

They drove on through the deepening night, past towns named Winona and Two guns, right by the turnoff that could have taken them to Meteor Crater. In spite of the lateness of the hour, Bella felt her imagination stirring.

On the road ahead, there would be hundreds of turnoffs to choose from. And each one would bring its own special kind of adventure. And that, in the end, was what she was after. Adventure. A change in her perspective, a new way of looking at the world. And if she thought of recent events in the light, well, she was getting just what she wanted. Just because Edward insisted too often on being a harbinger of gloom didn't mean she had to be gloomy right along with him.

She was flushed with a new resolve to keep things light and upbeat when they reached Winslow.

Bella stretched, elaborately, and said, "All right. Let's find someplace to sleep."

Winslow's two main streets, called Second and Third, were each one-way streets, so Edward ended up navigating a circle while Bella pretended to look for a suitable place. In actuality, she was watching out for the Boca Grande Cafe, which they passed not to far from the freeway on Second Street.

She waited until they were parallel with the cafe on Third Street, before settling on the Super Duper Motel. One block over and two blocks up and she'd be at the cafe in the morning. It would be nominal distance, even on foot.

Though the Super Duper Motel itself was distinctively distinctive, boasting forty rooms on two floors, each opening on the parking lot, Bella found its upbeat nature appealing.

When they pulled up to the office, Edward turned to her. "One room all right?"

No way, she thought. One room would be to dangerously intimate, let alone making it all the harder to get away in the morning.

But then she reconsidered. The naughty Bella would never quibble about anything so trivial as sharing a room with a man she was attracted to. Saying no would be out of the question. He's become doubly suspicious. His guard would be up and she'd never escape him in the morning.

She smiled at him-tauntingly, she hoped. "Hm. One room. S that a proposition?"

"Don't worry." his voice was flat. "I'll get separate beds."

She tried a teasing smile, wishing vainly for one in return. "But do you snore?"

"NO,: he said. His face remained impassive.

Sighing, Bella put her hand on his arm. "Edward. Let's lighten it up a little, okay? I mean, we're in this situation together and we might as well make the best of it."

"Right," he said, and went in to the motel office to register for their room.

The room had two double beds with worn red chenille bedspreads. The television was bolted to its stand and water could be heard dripping in the bathroom sink.

"Charming," Bella said. "I especially like the drapes. They look like modern art from the brush of a crazed orangutan."

"You chose it," Edward muttered.

"All right if I use the bathroom first?" She asked, insolently cheerful.

"Go ahead."

Bella closed the door behind her, engaging the privacy lock.


	8. Chapter 7

**A/N this chapter is for discordia81 because she's awesome at reviewing! :D btw this story has over 3000 hits! To bad not that many reviews :/ so when your done reading, review! Please!**

As Edward heard the sound of the water running in the sink, he smiled grimly to himself. The opportunity to uncover a little of the mystery of Bella Swan was now at hand. She'd taken one full-size suitcase and her overnight case into the bathroom with her. But the white shoulder bag that she'd bought to math her boots sat waiting on the vanity counter by the bathroom door.

Edward avoided meeting his own eyes in the mirror as he unzipped the little purse. Pawing through another's belongings offended his moral sense of right and wrong. However, in this case, he didn't see what else he could do. So he ignored the nagging of his conscience as he spread out a hand towel to muffle the sound and dumped the purse's contents on the counter.

He discovered immediately that she was carrying a substantial sum of traveler's checks and several major credit cards.

Her driver's license said she was almost 30 and just who she claimed to be. The picture of her though,made him stop and stare for precious seconds. It was a plain, unadorned version of the Bella he knew. As if she'd scrubbed her face clean and raked her hair back to take her driver's test. He couldn't help smiling at it. She looked so wary and vulnerable that way.

In an accordion strip of photo windows, she carried studio portraits of three babies and I little girl in pigtails. She also had three snap shots, one of a gray-haired couple and the others of two very pretty women. By the obvious physical resemblances, he assumed that the older couple were Bella's parents and the two women either cousins or sisters. They were all very wholesome-looking, with their attractive faces and friendly smiles. He imagined Bella must be the black sheep.

He stood for a few moments, staring at the picture, wondering about her childhood and about how she'd grown up. But then the water stopped running in the other room, and he realized he should get on with it.

He opened her business-card case. On ivory parchment stock, her cards announced that she was the proprietress of The Book Nook, used and hard-to-find books being her specialty.

'I own my own business', she had told him. Was that the actual truth then? Or was she just outrageous enough to have business cards printed for a make-believe concern?

Now, he decided, was no time to ponder that question.

Swiftly, Edward pocketed one business card and jotted down her home address from her driver's license. Then he shoveled the contents back into her purse and set it just where Bella had left it. He shook out the towel and hung it back on the rack.

He considered chancing a phone call, but decided against it. She'd be through in the bathroom any minute. Besides, the detective he needed to contact would be hard to reach at one in the morning on a Saturday night, and this was hardly a situation where Edward could leave a number to call back.

Intrigued with the information he'd uncovered, Edward stretched out on the beds and tried to make himself relax. He knew, however, that relaxation was unlikely, in spite of the seep-breathing exercises his fitness trainer had taught him.

Plagued as he was by insomnia, it was often difficult for him to get a full nights sleep even under ideal conditions. Tonight, in a strange and lumpy bed, worried about Esme, and wondering what wild thing Bella Swan would do nest sleep wasn't even an option.

Not that he wanted it to be. No, he was better off wide-awake and ready for action. Around Bella Swan, that was the only way to keep up.

###

In the bathroom, Bella donned one of the more modest gown from her wedding trousseau, a slinky ivory silk that covered her from low neckline yo her knees, but clunk a little more provocatively than might be appropriate. The peignoir that went with the disguised a few more of her curves, but made what didn't show more enticing.

She shook her head at herself in the cracked mirror. No, poor Edward would expire of grimness if she emerged from the bathroom dressed like this. He'd sure she was out to ravish him.

Maybe she was.

She dropped the slinky silk to the floor and foraged around her opened suitcase, finally coming up with a huge white t-shirt with a pink unicorn printed on the front that had been a gift from her eight year old niece, one of her sister's-Rosalie-daughters. She had three daughters.

The t-shirt would have to do. She slipped it over her head and the hem fell halfway to her knees.

"Done?" Edward asked absently when she rejoined him in the main room. He was stretched out on one of the red-covered beds reading a brochure that had been left on the night stand.

"Your turn."

Still not looking at her, he swung his feet of the bed, and reached for a little overnight kit he'd taken out from his trunk.

"I'm going to shower," he announced. "A long, hot shower."

"Good idea," she said.

He disappeared in the bathroom, significantly taking his car keys with him too. After a few minutes, she heard the shower running.

Bella set her travel alarm for 5:00 am., thinking that would give her two hours to get away from Edward. Then she slid beneath the covers of the other bed, and switched out the lamp on her side. She plumped her two flat pillows and thought vaguely of turning on the television, seeing that the late-night viewing was like in Winslow. But there was no remote, and she would have to get up to do it. She was just tired enough that the bed seemed almost comfortable, and before she was even aware she was sleepy, her eyes dropped closed.

###

Bella had no idea what woke her in the deepest part of the night. A glance at her travel clock told her it was tree o;clock. Fitfully,, she turned over to face Edward's side of the room.

He'd turned the light off. The room lay in deep shadow the only illumination was that which bled through the ugly drapes from the garish motel sign out front, but she could make out his shape. His chest was bare and the covers were pulled up to his waist.

"Edward?"

"Go back to sleep."

"Edward, what is it?"

"There's nothing wrong. Go back to sleep."

"Did you sleep at all?"

"I'm fine."

She sat up and turned on her light, squinting against the sudden glare. Then she rubbed her eyes and turned to him. He still sat against the headboard, his expression grim, his bare, well-muscled chest covered with a light dusting of hairs the same bronze color as his hair.

"Turn off the light. Go back to sleep," he said.

"Edward, I know you didn't sleep last night. You need some rest."

"I'm fine."

"You keep saying that, through clenched teeth. It's not very convincing. Aren't you tired?"

"I want to keep an eye on you."

"Eventually, you have to sleep."

"That's what you think." he uttered the words so bleakly that she had sudden urge to throw back the covers and go to him.

She topped herself. "hat do you mean?" she asked cautiously.

"I mean I have trouble sleeping, that's all. No big mystery."

"You mean you have insomnia?"

"Yes."

"But don't they have treatments for that. Sleep clinics, that sort of thing?"

He spoke defensively. "I saw a therapist about it."

"And?"

"He said that in my case it appeared to be a problem of control. When I sleep, I have to relinquish control. And i'm not good at that."

Something welled up inside her-a soft little ache. Bella recognized the emotion; tenderness. Here was this big, strong, domineering man, and he was scared to death to let himself be vulnerable enough to sleep.

"How long has it been, since you slept?"

"I've slept," he said, sounding like a recalcitrant little boy.

"Just answer the question, Edward."

"I slept for five hours Wednesday night."

"You haven''t slept in the past two nights?" she murmured disbelievingly. "Not at all?"

"I've gone longer. Believe me."

"But it's bad for you, not to have your rest."

"Bella, no one ever died from insomnia. Think about it. When you finally get tired enough, you go to sleep."

"But how long does it take?"

"I went for over a week once."

"That's awful." It suddenly occurred to her that his grim behavior since they had checked into the motel was probably directly related to his inability to sleep. He know bedtime was coming, and he knew he was going to spend the night staring at the wall.

"Turn off your light and go back to sleep. It's nothing to be upset about," he said after a moment.

Bella tossed back the red spread and stood up. "Turn over," she said. "And lie on your stomach."

His glance flicked over her bare legs and the huge shirt and settle o her sleep-flushed face. "Get back in the bed."

She folded her arms and frowned obdurately."Turn over. I'm going to give you a massage."

"I'm not in the mood for games, Bella."

"Neither am I. You need to relax, whether you think you can sleep or not. A massage will relax you." He stared at her, warily. She showed him her hands palms up. "Edward, please. I'm just trying to help."

"You mean that," he said after a pregnant silence. It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes. Please let me help you."

"I'll never fall asleep, so you'll be wasting your time. Especially if you're thinking you'll sneak out while I'm unconscious."

"Come on. I'm not your prisoner, and we both know it. I can walk out that door any time I wat, whether you're asleep or not."

"But if I'm asleep, I can't follow you."

"Look. How about if I promise not to run out on you?" or if I do, Ill be only be a little while, she added silently.

He was regarding her skeptically from under lowered brows.

"I would never break a promise, Edward," she said quietly, "no matter what you think of me." she strode purposefully to the vanity counter, feeling Edward's gaze boring into back. She took a tube of lotion from her overnight case.

When she turned to him again, he was still sitting against the headboard, frowning. She walked toward him, trying to look brisk and no-nonsense, like a nurse with a difficult patient.

He looked up at her. "You only want to help me, do you?" that husky undertone had come into his voice.

Standing there, bare feet chilled on the threadbare motel carpet, Bella Swan clutched her tube of lotion and examined her motives. Silently, she admitted that her motives were mixed. She shifted her gaze to the velvet painted of a big-eyed child on the wall above the headboard.

Yes, I want to help you, she thought. And I also want you to be sound asleep when I go to meet Esme in the morning. And beyond that...she caught her lower lip between her teeth as she admitted to herself, I want to touch you...

"You can answer any time," he prompted.

She forced herself to look at him, and as soon as she did, she realized she never wanted to look away. He was so beautiful. His chest was strong and deep, the cords of muscles in his arms powerfully defined. The bronze hairs on his skin looked crisp and inviting to touch. Her fingers itched to rail down his flat belly, where the hairs disappeared beneath the red bedspread. She realized that a man in his thirties with a sedentary job didn't keep a body like that without a great amount of hard work and self-discipline. And of course, if there was one thing Edward Masen had in excess, it was discipline.

His discipline was part of what attracted her so strongly. The Bella she had been until the night before admired it. And the new, naughty Bella longed to make him lose it completely, at least for a night.

Bella gulped. "You're right." she saluted him with the tube of lotion. "Bad idea. I'll just get back in my won bed." She started to turn.

His hand shot out and closed on her wrist. The warm, firm touch sent a hot little shiver clear down to her chilled toes. She looked into his eyes.

"You never did answer my question," he said.

"No, and Im not going to now."

For some inexplicable reason, that seemed to satisfy him. He released her and rolled onto his stomach, keeping the red spread up at his trim waist. "I'd appreciate a massage," he said in a neutral tone. "You're right. It'll make me less tense, if nothing else."


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N: hello! Long time no update, eh? My bad. Sorry i've been busy with school. But now i'm settled in and updates should be coming more often now.**

Bella gulped again, wishing the lump that kept rising in her throat would stay down. She stared at the golden-brown expanse f Edward's muscled back and shoulders. Where to begin?

She considered perching on the edge of the bed, but that would have her rubbing from the side, not nearly as effective as a more direct angle would be.

Holding onto the tube of lotion as if it were a lifeline, she hoisted a bare knee up onto the side of his bed, and then swung the other leg over him, so she came to rest astraddle his waist and the hard curve of his masculine behind.

"Am I too heavy?" she asked, hoping he didn't notice the breathy break in her voice.

"You're fine." he tossed the pillows to the floor and slid his sculpted arm up and out, bent at the elbow, so that his head rest on his arms. She assumed that was to give her access to the various muscle groups.

The knot in her throat was still there, she forced it down once again and squeezed some of the lotion onto her hands. She rubbed her hands together, preparatory to beginning her work on his shoulders.

That's just how I'm going to think of this. She told herself. As work. Purposefully activity to help relax poor Edward.

Staunchly, she laid a cream-slicked hand on either side of his powerful neck. He gave a low groan as she began to knead the hard muscle that moved out of his shoulders.

Slowly, deeply, she rubbed, pummeled and punched at each of his shoulders and out to his arms. She kept her concentration on easing the muscles beneath her hands, and was pleased to feel them gradually relax. As she worked over him, his big body perceptibly loosened beneath her soothing touch.

After she'd pulled and stoked his hands right down to his fingers, she worked her way back up to his shoulders and began slow deep long stokes on either side of his back bone.

He sighed contentedly .

Bella smiled, realizing that the knot in her throat has disappeared. Somehow, by putting her attention on the massage, it had become an end in itself. She'd stopped thinking of what might happen between them. There was only his smooth skin and the muscled beneath.

Bella closed her eyes, reveling in the feel of him under her hands. She took her thumbs and set them by the nubby bones of his spine, rubbing in an outward circle, working her way down until she had to lift her hips from the saddle of his ass to go farther.

Then she realized that perhaps she'd gone far enough. Gently, she lowered her hips again and lightly slid her hands back up to a less dangerous location.

"You continue to amaze me, Bella Swan."

His voice, when he'd said noting for so long a time, surprised her slightly. The tone of it surprised her even more. She'd never heard him sound like that. Lazy, content... relaxed. A soft smile curved her lips. However mixed her motives might have been, she'd succeeded in her objective. Under soothing hands, Edward Masen had managed to loosen up a little.

She put her hands on his shoulders again and bent her head down to his. "Feel better, don't you?"

"Much." his warm breath stirred her hair, which had fallen across his face when she leaned down to him.

Not questioning her action, only feeling close to him at the moment, intimate with him in the way she'd never really been with any man, she pulled her head back enough that the fall of hair stroked across his cheek and down his neck.

He groaned softly, and she thought he breathed her name as she went on teasing him with the cascade of tumbled curls. His muscles, which she'd worked so hard to relax, tightened again beneath her. But it was a good kind of tighten, a luxuriant of awakening desire and physical need.

Bella forgot all about her resolve not to ravish the man. She felt herself, suddenly, as a flame of pure feminine sensation, her only desire to feed the fire of her man's need.

And Edward Masen was definitely her man. Now, tonight, in all his masculine strength and beauty, he was everything the old, inhibited Bella might have dreamed of in her most secret fantasies. And for the new Bella, he was power and steadiness and the promise of wild fulfillment beneath a steely mask of self-control.

She put her lips where her hair had been. His skin was smooth and scented faintly of her lotion. She kissed him, first wit just her soft lips, feeling him, learning him. And then she opened her motuh and tasted the firm skin with her tongue.

"Bella." He said her name again, almost pleadingly.

She went on kissing him

"Bella..." His body moved, beneath her hips.

IN an instructive answer tot he call of flesh to flesh, she began to stroke herself against him, in a rhythm as old as time.

And she went on kissing him, sliding her lips and tongue upward until she found he neck, and his mouth that kept murmuring her name.

He stained his head to meet her hungry kiss and when their lips met, as she lay full-length against him, he deftly turned over beneath her, catching her as she slid off him, and settling her back on top of him, but this time front-to-front.

His powerful arms, freed now to have their own way, wrapped around her, and then slid over her shoulders until his hand cupped and held her face. He lifted his head, hungry for her as she was for him, and he kissed her, deep and aggressively, his fingers thrust deep in the chocolate spill of her hair.

Unashamed, Bella opened her mouth to him. His sweet tongue learned all the secret, moist places beyond her eager lips.

The kiss went on and on forever, and as their tongues sparred and stroked and teased, Bella let herself be aware of all the places she was touching him. At that moment touching him seemed the most important thing in the world.

She sat atop him, her knees on either side of his waist, and her stomach and chest against his, with only the barrier of her T-shirt between them. Below her gently rocking hips, she could feel the hardness of him, the readiness, and everything that was woman responded with a sensation of opening, of sultry invitation.

He'd kicked the blanket down, so as her hands made questing forays across his skin, she felt the elastic band of his briefs and realized he was wearing nothing else.

As he playfully bit her lip, and then licked it, she decided she wanted to be closer to him. Closer even than she was while lying on top of him.

She wanted rid of the barrier of her T-shirt, to feel her soft, full breasts against his hard chest. With a last nipping kiss that promised much, she placed her palms on his shoulders and levered herself to a full sitting position astride him. He groaned, luxuriously, as her hips made even closer contact with his.

She looked down at him, at his hard body and his handsome, squarish face and his green eyes that were now luminous with wanting, with sensual need.

Very slowly, she crossed her hands in front of her and grasp the hem of her shirt. She pulled it up and over her head, losing the hold of his shimmering gaze for only seconds.

She felt the cool air on her bare skin, as she dropped the shirt beside her on the tousled red spread. Naked but for a wisp of silk on her hips, she captured his gaze again.

He was shaking his head. The shimmer was still in his eyes, but dampened a little bit.

"Uh-uh," he said. He gazed on her bare breasts, and she saw the fire leap again in his eyes, just as she saw him quell it. "We need to stop this now."

She began to register just exactly what was happening. She was nearly nude as it was possible to be, straddling Esme Masen's son in an ugly motel room in Winslow, Arizona.

He felt around near her thigh, and came up with her shirt. Numbly, still reorienting herself to the reality of the situation, she clutched it to her chest.

With stunning sensitivity, he stroked a strand of her hair behind her hair. "You are beautiful," he said gruffly. "And i'd like noting better than to let nature take its course."

"But?"

"I don't think I'm ready to be another notch on your garter belt."

The lump was back in her throat. "Oh, I see." Slowly, she slid off him to the worn carpet at the far side of his bed. Turned away from him, she pulled the shirt over head and felt it mercifully drop around her thighs, covering he flushed nakedness from his sight.

She slid him an over-the-shoulder glance, since he was so deathly silent behind her. Caught off guard, his gaze burned into hers, smoldering with the heat of unsatisfied desire. He instantly averted his eyes.

"Give me a minute," he growled. Then he was off the bed and headed for the bathroom. She didn't miss the way he scooped up his car keys again before leaving her alone.

He needn't have bothered, she thought with as much irony as she could muster in her state of frozen embarrassment. At the moment, she was to stunned by her own actions and by his rejection of her, to move. She stood rooted to the spot until he returned and slipped again beneath the covers of the bed.

"Bella."

She refused to answer him, but realized she couldn't stand there staring at the far wall forever. She began to edge around the foot of the bed back over to her side of the room. Never in her life had she felt so empty and deflated, so utterly alone and undesirable. Even Mike's leaving her hadn't made her feel this bad. Some siren she'd turned out to be.

"Bella, come back here."

She marched resolutely to her own empty bed. And she almost made it. But then, six-foot-two of nearly naked man stopped her by grabbing her arm.

"Please let me go."

"Not until you look at me." He pulled on her arm.

She slumped to the bed beside him. His hand, as usual felt good-warm and secure. She squeezed it, her sense of humor slyly beginning to poke its head through the heavy veil of her mortification.

Then she turned her head slightly and dared to meet his gaze. He was sitting up against the headbored again, the spread once more tucked around her waist. He ge grinned, crookedly, and she felt her own lips curving upward in response.

"So much for helping you relax," she said wryly.

"The massage did help." he looked completely sincere.

"May I go back to my own bed now? My feet are freezing."

He tipped his head to the side, considering, and she as reminded of Esme. And then he was sliding down under the covers, guiding her by the shoulders to stretch out beside him, with the blankets between them.

"I like the way you feel against me," he said simply in her ear. "It'll help me relax if you sleep here."

"You mean it will help you relax if I can't even move without you knowing it."

"Um. Whatever." He wrapped an arm around her waist and tucked her closer against him. His big, solid body felt wonderful wrapped around her back.

"But my feet are still freezing," she gave out, sounding sulkier than she meant to, like a child who hadn't got her way and now hungered for pampering to make up for being thwarted.

Edward reached up and flicked the wall switch, turning off her lamp and his simultaneously. Then he flipped the chenille spread off of himself and over her, keeping the blankets and sheet underneath for himself. He carefully tucked the spread around her and then gathered her close again. "Better?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." She pressed her feet against the warmth he was generating from under the blankets and felt marvelously cozy.

"Now go to sleep," he instructed softly in her ear.

But that was easier said than done.

Outside, some late-night customer slammed a car door and shortly thereafter a trunk lid. A diesel truck rumbled down the street. From the bathroom, she could hear the water dripping from a leaky faucet in the sink. The drip, to her ears, seemed to make a chiding noise. It was sounded like her conscience, clicking its tongue in disapproval at her multiplying deceptions.

Bella was feeling guilty again for misleading the poor man whose warmth and strong arms felt so good around her. He was a good man, a real man, one who cared for those he loved and always put right behavior above his own fleeting desires.

And he had wanted her. Now that her first humiliation had faded, she could see that clearly. But he'd felt it wouldn't be right to make love with her, given who he thought she was, and given the short time they had known each other. So he'd called a halt-later than he should have, perhaps, but at least before it was too late.

Now, with the heat of his body dispelling the predawn chill, she felt so close to him. And it was a closeness far deeper than the warmth of their bodies shared in the darkness. She felt just as close, though in a totally different way, as she had felt when she'd thrown wisdom out the window and started making love to him.

But no matter how close she felt to him, in a few hours, she was going to be called upon to deceive him again. And that made her feel guilty as a naughty child.

She wished, fervently, that she didn't have to lie to him. But she couldn't let Esme down, not now when she'd given her word to meet the older woman alone.

_However, _her conscience scolded, _there's also the matter of your real identity. Nothing's stopping you from telling him that. You could manage to explain it without betraying Esme at all, if you tried._

_But then he won't look at me like I'm the most wild and wonderful creature in the world anymore..._

_Real closeness always begins with honesty, _her conscience reminded her.

Tucked against Edward's broad chest, Bella sighed. And then she spoke

"Edward? There's something I haven't told you. Something I want you to know..."

She let her voice trail off and waited for his questioning response.

None came.

"Edward?"

His chest moved in and out, even and slow against her back.

Bella squirmed under his arm enough to roll face-up, so she could see him. He made a protesting noise and snuggled up closer to her, tucking his head into the curve of her shoulder.

He was sound asleep.

Bella smiled, and allowed herself to trace the bridge of his nose with her index finger. "Never mind," she whispered. "We can talk about it another time."

Still smiling she rolled to her side again and settled cozily back into the curve of Edward's body. Then she closed her eyes.

**Review! Please!**


	10. Chapter 9

Bella woke to the insistent beeping of her travel alarm. She instinctively reached out toward to the sound, before it occurred to her sleep-drugged mind that the clock was over on the far side of the other bed. Groaning, she struggled out of the masculine arms that held her and scrambled across the other bed, managing to silence the irritating sound.

In the resounding quiet that followed, she sank to a crouch on the empty bed, clutching the alarm between her hands. She stared at the face of the clock for a time, then she slithered off the far side of the bed and peeked through the drapes.

It was still dark. The blinding motel sign out front was on blinking Vacancy. Bella dropped the edge of the curtain and sat down on the bed again, putting the alarm back on the night stand.

Finally actually waking up, she looked over her shoulder at the man on the other bed. He was snoring very softly.

"Edward?" she tried.

He went on snoring. Bella thought it a nice kind-of sound, even and soft, like a big cat purring with contentment. She longed to crawl back in beside him and let him purr in her ear until at least noon.

But there was her promise to Esme to think of. If Edward was really was sound asleep as he seemed, now would be the time to get of here. She could find some way o while away the time until seven, though what specifically, she wasn't sure.

She glanced out the window again. Besides looking dark, it all looked quiet as a tomb. Not a soul in sight. She'd be lucky to find somewhere to wait until the Boca Grande Cafe opened at, she assumed, some time before seven.

Bella straightened her shoulders and ordered herself into action. As stealthily as she could, she darted about the room, tugging on a pair of trim jeans and a white embroidered shirt from her suitcase, giving the ordinary clothes dash and flare by pairing them with her new white boots and fringed jacket..

Then she scribbled a brief note and propped it up with the keys he had guarded so carefully, right on his nightstand, where he would see it first thing should he wake before she returned. Edward was still snoring happily when she tiptoed out the door.

###

As the door clicked shut, Edward opened his eyes. The enchanting little witch had made good her escape, just as he'd intended.

Tossing back the tangle of blankets, he jumped out of bed and began rapidly puilling on clothes. As he buttoned his cuffs, he quickly scanned the note n the night stand.

_Starving for donuts. Be back soon._

_Bella.  
><em>_  
><em>"Donuts hah!" he muttered, as he slid on his shoes and reached for his jacket. Her leaving the keys told him much. Chances were she was meeting his mother, and that the meeting was going to take place somewhere nearby.

All he had to do was keep up with her, and he'd get to the bottom of this whole mess at last. He felt rejuvenated; he'd actually slept for over an hour with Bella's deletable body tucked up against his own. It had been a deep, satisfying kind of sleep too. The type of sleep he rarely experienced. So that length of it had mattered little; it had renewed him. He felt ready to tackle anything: even his mother and her tempting like brown-haired secret sister.

He pocketed both his car keys and the room key and let himself out the door. He strode purposefully past the silent row of rooms and the darkened office until he reached the street. There he hesitated, sticking his head around the side of the building to peer down both sides of the street.

Bella Swan was nowhere in sight. In the time it had taken him to pull on his clothes, she'd ducked into the side street, evading him though she didn't even know he was on her tail.

Her temporary escape didn''t faze him in the least. She couldn't have gone that far on foot anyway. He'd methodically cover all the near by streets on foot himself, until he found her, and then he'd hang back until he discovered exactly what she was up to.

Caught up in the chase, Edward didn't stop to analyze the smile that played on his lips or the lightness of his step as he stalked Winslow's predawn streets. Edward Masen hadn't allowed himself enough fun in his life to recognize when he was having it.

###

Bella briskly strolled the few blacks tot he cafe and learned that it would open at six. She had little over half an hour to kill.

She spent the time walking, aimlessly exploring the quiet streets of the desert town as the sun pinkened the expanse of the sky in the east. At least it was six o'clock and she returned to the cafe.

The solitary waitress poured her coffee-and left her alone. Bella watched the waitress for a while as the tall, thin woman flirted with the only other customer at the counter, a man who wore his cigarettes rolling up in the sleeve of his white T-shirt and had a tattoo on his bulging bicep that said **THELMA FOREVER**. So much for forever, Bella thought wryly, remember that the waitress's name tag had said **VONDA RAE**

There was an old-fashioned jukebox selector on her table, so Bella thumbed through it. She chose a few love songs which she played in honor of Vonda Rae and her new love, Thelma's ex. In the middle of a K.T Oslin song, Vonda Rae returned with the coffeepot.

Just then the pay phone on the wall rang. Vonda sauntered over to it.

"Boca Grande. Just a minute, I'll check." She put her hand over the mouthpiece and held it out toward Bella.

"You Bella Swan?"

Bella nodded and took the phone. Vonda Rae went back to flirt with Thelma's ex.

"Did you manage to get away from Edward?" Esme asked without preamble.

"He's sleeping like a baby at the motel."

"Wonderful."

"Esme, what is going on/ Edward said you ran out on your own engagement party. He says your fiance has locked himself in his room and won't come out."

Esme made a disbelieving noise in her throat. "Carlisle will be fine. I wouldn't be in love with him if he weren't a survivor."

"Then you _are_ in love with him?"

Esme sighed. "Totally and completely, I'm afraid."

"Then _why_ did you run out on him?"

There was silence on the line then Esme said, "Marriage is a big step for me. I've never been married. I must be absolutely sure.

"But what are you _doing_?"

There was no answer. Esme, her voice suddenly sly, asked a question of her own. "Tell me, what do you think of my son?"

Bella groaned. "He's an overbearing stuffed shirt who wants control everything and everyone in sight."

"He's perfect for you," Esme declared smugly. "I've thought it over, and I've decided that you two are meant for each other."

Bella made her voice slow and patient. "Esme, the makeover was great, but this is going to far."

"Tell me you're not attracted to Edward."

"Esme-"

"Just say it, and I'll drop the whole plan."

"What plan?"

"You _are_ attracted!"

Bella didn't speak for a moment. Unbidden images of the night beofre had risen in her unruly imagination. She saw herself sitting on Edward Masen, felt his hands in her hair and his lips against her own...

"All right, Esme. "I'm attracted."

"Ha. I knew it."

"But it's all one big mess. He thinks I'm some wild and free mantrap on the make who's out to keep you from being happy with your fiance and maybe steal your salon. Besides, he thinks our support group in an anti-commitment cult."

"I'm sure you'll work it out eventually. In the meantime, are you having a great vacation, or what/"

"Esme, you're not listening."

"Darlin', I have a few more oold boyfriends to look up in the next couple of days."

"But why?"

"I told you. I have to be sure."

"Edward said you kissed some guy right in front of his wife in their frozen yogurt franchise in Palm Springs."

"That was jack," Esme's voice went musing. "Such a sweetheart. And I know I loved him him, once. But when I kissed him, all I felt was longing- for Carlisle."

"You're traveling around the country, kissing your old boyfriends?"

"More or less. I've got to be sure. If the flame still burns with any of them, then i'll have to tell Carlisle I'm simply not the marrying kind."

"But where are you going?"

"Back to where I started, eventually. Hot Springs, Arkansas, where I was born and raised. Meet you there in, say, six days. Saturday, the twentieth. Just don't tell Edward until then where I'm going."

"Esme, you're asking the impossible."

The sultry voice dripped reproach. "Well, I suppose you'll do what you have to do."

"I'll have to keep lying to him."

"Not lying exactly. Just not revealing all the truth."

"Astrid, it's wrong."

"Do you know he's never had a vacation that I can remember/ he was a driven little boy and he's a driven man. When he was ten, he got his first paper route. He was working at a fast-food franchise as soon as he was legally old enough.. he held down two jobs while he put himself through UCLA. For relaxation, he has a fitness trainer who comes to his his house and tortures him with push-ups and sit-ups until he's so exhausted he can finally sleep a few hours. Did I mention he's an insomniac?"

"You didn't have to. I found that out myself."

"Darlin', this is all unfolding just as it should."

"Esme, I hate it when you go all mystical on me."

"Admit it. When you drew my name as your secret sister, you thought, 'what in the world will I ever have in common with a woman like that?'"

"There's nothing to admit. We both that's how I felt. You felt that way to."

"But were were wrong. We were meant to be sisters, so I could follow you to Palm Springs and realize at the same time that I must reexamine my own engagement. I have to do what I'm doing so I'll know Carlisle is right for me, and you lost that idiot because it was your destiny to discover other dimensions to yourself. It all fits together because Edward followed me, and as you discover your other selves you will also aid my son in learning that there's more to life than work and rigid self-control. Isn't it marvelous?" 

"It's a mess," Bella reiterated.

"It's life," Esme declared. "And it's mad and marvelous!"

At that moment Bella spotted the bronze-haired man who was pushing through the glass doors at the other end of the cafe.

"Uh-oh," she said.

"What is it?" Esme asked in her ear.

"Edward. He's found me."

"Then I must go. Meet you at noon Saturday in front of the main post office, Reserve Avenue at Central in Hot Springs." And then Esme hung up.

Looking resignedly grim, Edward strode toward her. He took the receiver from her hands. He held it to his ear, heard the silence on the other end, and very gently. Put it back in its cradle.

Then he took her by the arm. "Where are you sitting?" He said though clenched teeth.

She pointed to her coffee cup and he guided her back to the table. He signaled to Vonda Rae, who tore herself away from her boyfriend long enough to take Edward's order. Bella didn't even try to object when he presumed to order eggs, toast, bacon and hash browns for her as well as for himself.

"I was feeling pretty cheerful," he said after Vonda Rae had placed a large tomato juice on the table and left them alone. "Until I walked in her and saw you were already on the phone." He sipped from his juice. "That was Esme, wasn't it?"

Bella nodded. "You weren't asleep at all," she accused.

"Not after you alarm went off. But I lost you, getting dressed. I passed this place once already, but it was closed."

"I went for a walk until it was open."

He eyed her warily from across the table, silently sipping his juice. Bella knew he was trying to devise a new approach, trying to come up with a way to pry Esme's whereabouts from her.

Bella sunk into her chair and waited for the questioning to start.

**A/n: I know its been awhile wince I updated. But school is a bitch. And I've been studying my ass off. And this is procrastination at its best right now. But hopefully updates will be coming sooner now that the year is gonna start slowing down a bit and Christmas break is coming. Should be another update within a couple of days.**

**Review!**


	11. Chapter 10

While Bella ate, she watched Edward, just as he was watching her. He watched her like a duelist, looking for an opening. She, on the other hand, was studying him.

He'd been in such a hurry to follow her, that he'd left his tie behind.. the top button of his shirt was undone, his collar flying. His hair was still mussed up from sleep. Bella thought he looked wonderful, a bit rumpled and windblown. Comparing him now with the image of tense perfection he'd presented yesterday in the hotel hallway, she decided she much preferred him delightfully mussed.

Made uneasy by her steady regard, Edward smoothed his hair back with his fingers. "What are you staring at?"

She swallowed a bite of toast and tried to keep from grinning. "You forgot your tie."

"I was in a hurry," he sounded deliciously defensive.

Naughty Bella took over. "You should forget your tie more often. You look like a rumpled bed. It's very sexy."

He gulped down the bite of egg he was chewing and pointed his fork at her. "I want you to behave yourself."

She looked at him from under her lashes. "Do you, Edward? Do you really want that from me?" She shook her head. "I don't think so." He glared at her. She tipped her head, still studying him, and then she heard herself say,

"Edward, the...situation's been reevaluated. It's been decided that you're welcome to come along with me if you want to."

He was looking at her through narrowed eyes. "Reevaluated? By whom?"

"Who doesn't matter." Bella could hardly believe she was doing this. But, the more she though of Esme's convoluted reasoning, the more that reasoning made sense. Edward Masen needed a crash course in lightening up. Bella Swan was making progress with him. In six more days, she just knew she could work wonders. He'd come so far already.

"Bella, this is insane. Come along with you where/" he was demanding.

She let the silence stretch out before answering. "On my vacation, of course."

"Tell me the truth."

"I can only say that it'll be over within a week."

"A week?" he uttered the word as if she'd asked for a lifetime. "I can't afford a week. I have clients who depend on me, responsibilities that I can't possibly put off."

She knew the grin on her face was a cunning one. "You mean maybe Carlisle would have to stop sulking and go back to work if you don't go home?"

"Carlisle Cullen is not sulking. He's devastated."

"So he could use a little extra work to make him forget his personal problems."

"You have absolutely no comprehension of Carlisle's feelings or my professional circumstances, Bella. I'll thank you to refrain from making light of them."

She popped the final piece of bacon into her mouth, and pushed her plate away, sighing airily. "Of course it's up to you. I certainly can't force you to come with me."

"Just tell me here and now where I can find Esme."

"But, Edward, I have no idea." And it was true. At least until Saturday.

He ran his hand again through his adorably mussed hair. "I'm tired, Bella, very tired."

"I know, because you never sleep." she looked up from up under her lashes.. "But you slept with me, didn't you? If I hadn't been foolish enough to set that alarm, you'd still be sleeping."

"I'm not talking about that kind of tired," he muttered.

"But what other kind is there?"

"There are hundred other kinds of tired." His voice, usually so low and controlled, was getting louder. "Tired of being led across the country by two loony women. Tired of being made a fool of. Tired of being lied to. Tired of being totally and completely in the dark as to what the hell is going on!" He was on his feet, pounding his fist on the table, before he caught himself. "I have had it, Bella! Up to here!"

From the counter, Vonda Rae stared. Her boyfriend applauded.

"That's tellin' her, man!" The boyfriend cheered.

"Earl, you hush up," hissed Vonda Rae.

Edward glanced over his shoulder at Earl, who stuck a hammy fist in the air in a gesture of encouragement.

"Thank-you," Edward said gravely.

Earl nodded and lit up a cigarette.

Esward sat down. He pushed his half-finished breakfast away. "My appetite has disappeared."

Bella waned to reach across the table and touch him- a soothing touch. But she held herself back, because she knew he last thing he wanted right then was to be touched by her.

After he'd been staring at morosely at his congealing eggs for several seconds, Bella realized some kind of action was called for. She stood up.

Immediately, his gaze pinned her. "Where are you going?"

She tossed some money on the table, including a generous tip for Vonda Rae. "Back to the motel." She restrained herself from asking if he was coming, betting that he wasn't ready to let his only clue to Esme escape, no matter how fed up he was with the situation.

Edward watched her go. Then he asked the waitress for more tomato juice and carried the glass over to the phone on the wall.

He reached Jasper Whitlock at home, still in bed. Jasper and Edward had attended high school together. Edward had used Jasper's detective agency more than once in the process of preparing a case.

"Any thing you can come up with, Jasper," he said after he'd given him the information from the business card as well as Bella's home address. "This one's personal, and I need it soon. I"ll call you. Tomorrow, or as soon as I get the chance."

"I'll do what I can." Jasper promised.

###

Bella was sitting beneath the tassel swag lamp at the little round table in the corner, poring over her map, when she heard Edward's key in the lock.

He closed the door quietly and came up behind her.

"Where are we going next?" he asked. He didn't sound too happy, but the words were the ones she'd been longing to hear.

Relief-and excitement-flooded through her. She didn't bother to restrain herself anymore. She jumped up and threw her arms around him. "Oh, Edward. We're going to have such a good time. Just you wait and see."

Reflexively, his arms went around her and he hugged her in return, but only for a moment. Then his hands were at her waist, setting her back so he could look at her. "You really do behave as if this is nothing more than a crazy, impromptu vacation." he was eying her with obvious suspicion.

"But that's exactly what it is," she answered, utterly ingenuous.

He grunted in disbelief and dropped his hands from her waist. Then he snared up his tie and went to the vanity mirror to put it on. "I'm going to need to stop and buy a few things." He watched her watching him in the mirrow as he efficiently looped and knotted his tie. "This shirt is a disgrace and my suit needs cleaning. And here at the Super Duper Motel, they've never heard of concierge.

"Mr. Impeccable," she mused fondly.

"What did you say?" he was brushing his hair with a brush from the little emergency overnight case he'd brought in from his car.

"Er, I said that's do-able."

"Do we still have to be in New Mexico by noon?"

Quickly, Bella calculated. The distance chart on the map said they were a little over a thousand miles from their Saturday destination, if they were to take highway 40 straight through. But, of course, she planned on several detours. Random detours. Into delightfully off-the-beaten-path locations.

"Plans have changed. We need to be near Albuquerque by evening," she improvised.

"Plans are always changing," he muttered dryly. "As if you were making them up as you go along."

"You've found me out," she replied with mock remorse. Then she bent over the mp spread out on the table. They were two hundred and fifty miles from Albuquerque. They had plenty of time to reach there by evening, and enjoy the sight along the way.

Done making himself impeccable as possible under the circumstances, Edward said, "I'll call my office from the car. Let's go."

**A/N: not much happens. But its a chapter. It'll pick up soon. ;)**


	12. Chapter 11

Edward drove in silence as they left Winslow behind. To her few attempts at conversation, he grunted or gave terse answers. Bella quickly decided she wasn't going to let him get away with this for the whole drive. Her assignment, as both she and Esme saw it, was to get him to lighten up. So she soon began casting about for ways to accomplish her objective.

At Holbrook when they'd been on the road for about half an hour, Bella had him pull off at a roadside dairy stand. Edward declined to follow her inside, apparently reasoning that she wouldn't be ditching him in the middle of the desert when she could have so easily escaped him in Winslow.

She bought two Fudgie Bars-a decadent concoction of vanilla ice cream, fudge syrup and fudge topping speckled with nuts, all stuck on a stick and guaranteed to elevate the blood sugar and expand the waistline. Remaining obstinately cheerful, she bounded back out to the car, slid into her seat and held one out for Edward, who was already turning the key in the ignition.

"What is _that?" _he looked at the ice cream bar as if she planned to poison him with it.

"Fudgie bar." she bit into hers, sighing voluptuously.

"No, thank you," he said, as she continued to hold his out to him. He started to shift the car into reverse.

"Suit yourself." she shrugged, and laid his bar, still wrapped, on the little pull-out cup holder beneath the dashboard.

"It'll melt there," he said.

"I'll take care of it in a minute," she said between slurps.

Bella realized with an internal smirk of satisfaction that he seemed momentarily to have forgotten all about what a hurry he was in to get back on the road where he could go on driving he knew with a kind of grim fascination as she continued nibbling at the nutty semisweet fudge crust that encased the layer of snow-white ice cream, and the thick ooze of more fudge beneath that.

"It's not even nine in the morning." the words were disapproving, but the tone was mesmerized.

"But it's so goood." with her tongue, she licked at the creamy vanilla where she'd revealed it by nibbling off the chocolate.

"But it's not good for you." he sounded like he was trying to convince himself, even more than her.

She looked a I'm, steadily, as she continued to lick the melting confection. Shew as thinking how sexy green eyes could be, and now the person she'd been two days ago would never have indulged in anything so debauched as a Fudgie Bar.

"Edward." she stroked her tongue up the stick, where a dribble of vanilla almost escaped. "Life is all about balance."

He blinked, then tried to assume a superior air, though the huskiness of his voice betrayed him a little. "What do you know of balance?"

"I'm learning. Every day." she picked up his Fudgie Bar again and waved it tantalizingly at him. "Have you ever eaten a Fudgie Bar?"

"No, and I never will." he didn't sound terribly convincing.

"How sad for you. You're missing one of the premiere experiences of life." she took her attention from her own bar and peeled back the wrapper on his very delicately, with her teeth.

He shook his head, slowly, like a man spellbound by a sinuous snake. "I'm not going to eat that."

her lips curled upward and she leaned across the console toward him. "Say it like you mean it."

He looked down at her, and the hunger in his eye had nothing to do wit the craving for ice cream. "I'm not going to kiss you, either," he said, the words seeming to drop from his lips of their own volition.

"Um. Just like you weren't going to kiss me back in the parking garage in Palm Springs."

"That thing is melting."

"Then lick it."

He did. "You have to start learning to consider the consequences of your actions," he said as soon as the ice cream no longer endangered his slacks.

"Oh, but I have. I am. Come on, Edward. Another bite." he as instructed, while she polished off the last of her own bar. "Your mother tells me you're obsessed with physical fitness," she said as she continued to feed him.

"My mother's entitled to her opinion." the engine was still running, so he fumbled for the power window switch.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He took her stick and the remains of his ice cream bar and tossed them neatly out the open window into a waste can by the car door. "There," he said, turning back to her. "That takes care of that."

"Oh well," she gave in gracefully and began pulling back to her side of the car. "At least I got you take a little taste."

"Wait." he held onto her elbow.

"What?"

"You've got chocolate..." he took his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the corner of her lip. "There."

Lord, she wanted to stretch just the little distance it would take her lips to meet his. But in the moment it had taken him to dispose of the sweet treats, she'd decided she wasn't going to throw herself at the poor man again. He'd begin to think her insatiable. For this magical week, she might be wild and free. But she was stopping short of insatiable or heaven knew what might transpire.

Edward seemed to have forgotten that there was no need to keep holding onto her arm, now that he'd so considerately dabbed the bit of chocolate from her mouth.

"Thank you," she said and tugged lightly, to remind him that he could let her go now.

He held on, gently. She could have broken his grasp if she wanted to.

But she didn't. "Edward-"

"I'm not going to kiss you," he said, each word slow husky and deliberate.

"I think you told me that already."

"We're going to be in close proximity for a week."

"That's right."

"Boundaries have to be set. Limits maintained."

She tried a little smile. "Okay. No more Fudgie Bars, I promise."

"I'm not talking about ice cream."

"Fine. I get the message. You can let go of my arm now."

He held on, and spoke firmly. "I want you to stop teasing me. I don't want to take advantage of you." his expression softened. "I have feeling you've been taken advantage of too much in your life."

"Don't bet on it," she said, without thinking.

"Go ahead." his voice tender."Treat your pain as if it's all a joke. But I know you've been hurt, Bella. And hurt badly. No woman lives on the run like you are without a reason."

"Well, now," she said. "I won't argue with that."

With the hand that wasn't holding onto her arm, he smoothed her wild hair back away from her face. Bella felt her breath stick in her throat. He'd done the very same thing the night before when she'd been sitting on top of him, nude to the waiste.

"So beautiful, and so confused," he said, his voice soft as melting ice cream. "I want to help you, Bella. If you'll let me."

It occurred to Bella that she'd very much like to be helped by him. Especially if he'd go on stoking her hair in that tender , wonderful way. "Edward, I think..." but her voice trailed off as she realized she had no idea at all what she thought.

"were you mistreated as a child?" he prompted.

She shook her head, and told the truth. "My father is the chief of police in a small town in Washington and my mother is teacher. I have two sisters, one older and one younger. Both are prettier and more popular than I ever was."

He blinked, as if if she;d surprised him. "Two sisters," he mused. "Is that so?"

"Yes. We lived in Forks, Washington."

"I see." his tone made her suspicious, though she couldn't quite put her finger on why. It was as if he were correlation information, though how he could do that wen he had no information but what she'd given him was beyond her. "Tell me more," he coaxed.

Shrugging off her suspicions, she continued, she continued, "My parents are divorced. My dad still lives in forks and my mother is remarried and living in Florida. I have a degree in library science from University of Washington. And I own a bookstore, in Westwood."

His eyes gleamed, briefly. "A bookstore. In Westwood."

"It's the truth" she said, feeling noble.

"I'm sure." the words were bland.

"Is there anything else you'd like to know?" she asked in saccharine tones after a moment.

He didn't miss a beat. "Tell me about the support group."

"I wtold you. It's a group of women who get together every week to share-"

He cut her off. "How did you become involved in it?"

"There was an ad. In the L.A weekly. I felt there was something missing in my life, a closeness with other women that I'd never found with my mother and sisters. My mother's very hare brain. And I never had that much in common with my sisters. We were close, but there were things that we never really agreed on and thought differently. They were both so outgoing and gorgeous. But I was the bookworm-the mousy one."

"The mousy one." he repeated her description softly.

Bella sighed. "You don't believe a word of this, do you?" he just went on looking at her, measuringly, not even stroking her hair any longer. "I suppose it would fit in better with your idea of me if I said my mother ran a bordello in New Orleans and I went to work there myself at a very tender age. Or if I told you I'm the runaway daughter of one of the Beverly Hills One Hundred, spoiled and indulged until I have no other purpose in my life but where to find the next good time."

"Is that closer to the truth?"

She pulled away from him, then, sharply. "I've told you the truth," she said, staring out the window at the redwood fence that separated the dairy-stand lot from the gas station.

"I guess I just can't see it through all the lies," he said.

Sitting back in her own seat, she turned to him. "By the end of this, you'll know everything. I promise."

"Do you have convincing evidence as to why I should believe your promises?"

Bella shrugged. "You might as well believe me as not, since you''ve decided to go with me either way."

"The logic in that argument escapes me completely."

"Because it's not logical. It's just good sense. Why brood and pout all the way across the country, when you could just as well relax and have a good time?"

"I never pout. It that where we're going? Across the country?"

"Right now let's take that road there." she pointed. "It leads to the Petrified Forest National Park. Or so the sign on the highway said."

Without another word, Edward shifted into reverse and backed out of the dairy stand onto the road she'd indicated. Bella turned on the radio and punched the digital channel selector, looking for a program to fill the testy silence between herself and Edward.. she found a country station that kept fading in and out, bu still the wavering signal was better than listening to nothing and feeling emanating disapproval from the driver's side of the car.

In twenty minutes, they reached the park. Bella turned off the radio then and exclaimed over the brilliantly colored remains of ancient coniferous trees. Edward grunted occasionally and piloted the car wit a kind of dogged determination that cast a dreary pall on all her efforts to have a good time. He followed her through the Rainbow Forest Museum with his hands in his pockets, not saying anything. He refused to even let one "ooh" or the slightest "ah" over Agate Bridge, a huge petrified log that spanned a forty food ravine. And though he accompanied her to Newspaper Rock on a 120-step trail down the face of a cliff, he glared at the Indian petrographic there as if they, too, were keeping secrets they had no right to conceal.

Bella tuned back into her country and western station when they merged back onto the main highway at a little past noon.

"Go on straight through to Gallup," she instructed Edward blithely. It was becoming like a contest between them. He refused to crack a smile; she absolutely would not relinquish her good humor. "We can stop and buy you the things you need there." she tossed him a broad, friendly smile. "If that's okay with you, of course."

"Wonderful," he said flatly.

Bella began tapping rhythm to the music on her blue jeaned thigh, and humming along. She stared out the window at the big, pale sky and occasional cotton-puff clouds and the red desert that seemed to go on beyond forever, broken only by scrub-brushed hills and high mesas. The flat tablelands fascinated her, thrusting as they did straight up from the desert floor, their sheer sides almost purple where they were shadowed from the bright midday glare.

Edward stopped for gas just before they crossed the New Mexico state line and they reached Gallup before two o'clock. They ate mouthwatering chilli at a place called the Ranch Kitchen where the waitress wore bright gathered skirts and Bella exclaimed over the beauty of the authentic Navaho rugs hanging on the walls. Edward at in silence, giving her little more than a nod and grunt now and then.

He chose an ordinary department store in which to buy his clothes, but Bella did find it gratifying when he emerged from the dressing room. He was wearing tan jeans, boots and a plaid shirt and carrying several more shirts and jeans in various colors.

"Don't give me that smug look," he mumbled, as he added a sheepskin jacket to his pile of new clothes. "If you're going to be dragging me up and down cliff faces to stare at Indian rock drawings, a business suit is totally inappropriate."

"I couldn't agree with you more," she said, knowing full well that she sounded every bit as smug as she looked. Even though was was still scowling, he had to be considerably more comfortable in the casual clothes-and comfortable was good. Comfortable was a plus in the direction of lightening up.

The sales clerk agreeably hung and bagged Edward's much-abused suit. "Tonight," Edward told her has he paid for his new vacation wardrobe, "we stay at a decent hotel where I can get this suit cleaned and pressed."

Some adventure, Bella thought wryly. Driving around with a stuffed shirt whose major concern is getting his suit cleaned.

They were returning through the store tot he car, laden with purchases, when she spotted the sleeping bags on sale in the sporting goods section.

She stopped and set down the bags she was carrying.

"Edward, I see something we need."

He followed the direction of her gaze. "No," he said. "Oh, no."

"Oh, Edward. I've always wanted to camp out."

"You said Albuquerque tonight," he accused darkly. "There are plenty of good hotels in Albuquerque."

"I said near Albuquerque."

"So? There's no problem. You can go where you have to go and do whatever you have to do and then we can find decent lodgings and get a good night's sleep on actual beds."

"You know you won't sleep anyway," she chided. "so what does it matter whether you don't sleep in some boring hotel room or out beneath a blanket of stars?"

"This is rattlesnake country," he threatened. "And at night it get cold up in the mountains around Albuquerque. Snakes are attracted to warm, close places. Like a sleeping bag."

"How do you know?" she quizzed suspiciously.

"Esme's my mother, remember? When I was a kid, she dragged me all over this country. She went through this back to nature phase when I was not quite in my teens. We slept out under a blanket of stars enough times to last me the rest of my life."

"Good," Bella enthused. "Then that means you're an expert. We won't have any problems."

"Bella, why do you always insist on taking what I tell you and twisting it to fit your nest harebrained scheme?"

"We have to sleep out, Edward," she told him solemnly.

"Why?"

"Because I'm receiving my next set of instructions sort of out in the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night."

"Sort of out in the middle of nowhere? Where exactly in nowhere?"

"You know I can't tell you," she said. She though, mainly because I don't know yet... "Now, watch these bags, will you?"

"Bella..."

"Be right back."

**A/N: i'm updating so quickly because I feel bad for not updating for like 2 months. LOL. Almost 10,000 visitors and only almost 40 reviews? Aw come off of it bies. Pleeeeease review? Prettty please? And thank you to those that have been reviewing. Like ****Discordia81**** who hasn't missed reviewing a chapter yet and her reviews make me extra motivated :D**


	13. Chapter 12

"The weather report said a forty percent chance of rain."

"Edward, don't be such a pessimist. There's not a cloud in sight!"

"Desert storms can strike almost without warning."

"We're not in the desert anymore, or didn't you notice?"

"In spite of the occasional pinon pine, this is still the desert. Storms can come and go in a flash."

"Fine. When it starts to rain, we'll get in the car."

"Do you realize how far we drove on unpaved road to get here? We'll be driving back through a quagmire if it rains. My car is hardly an all-terrain vehicle."

"So, it'll be a challenge getting back. Now I don't want to hear one more word about the weather. Please?" 

"Don't ever say I didn't warn you."

"Never. I'll never say that."

"And beyond the threat of thunderstorms this whole escapade has no logic to it whatsoever.." 

"How so, Edward?"

"Do you actually expect me to believe that someone's meeting you out here in the middle of nowhere?"

"Believe what you like. I'm waiting for...a message."

To that, the man on the sleeping bag across the camp fire gave a disbelieving grunt and fell blessedly silent for a time.

Bella, lying on top of her sleeping bag but under a blanket from the car, sighed in gratitude for the moment of piece and laced her hands behind her head she stared up at the stars that seemed like holes of light in the black fabric of the sky.

They were camped up against a large rock near the base of a brush-dotted mountain at the end of a nameless road somewhere northwest of Albuquerque. Their fire had burned low between their bedrolls and now Bella felt the heat from the coal as lovely warmth on the side of her face.

As night crept across the mountains and the thin air acquired a bite that soon became a chill, they'd eaten sandwiches bought before they left the main highway and shared a thermos of steaming tea.

"What kind of message?" Edward prodded from the other sleeping bag, putting an end to Bella's musing on the hours just Past.

Bella shifted her position a little to avoid a few rocks that were poking her in the back. "Isn't it beautiful out here?"

"What I'm asking is, are we expecting someone?" Edward pressed on.

"Expect... the unexpected," Bella advised.

Edward, who'd stretched out on top of his sleeping bag, now sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees. Aware of his movements Bella rolled to her side, propping her head up on her hand and grinning at him from across the red coals of their fire.

"Come on," she said. "This isn't so awful, is it?"

He utterly surprised her by giving her that charming crooked smile that had been so depressingly absent through most of the day. "No, it's not awful," he confessed. He tipped his head, thinking.

"You know, I can see Esme in you when you do that." the words were out before she considered if the mention of his mother would snap him back into surly silence.

But he took no offense. "When I do what?"

"Tip your head like that. Even if you'd never told me your name, I would have figured out you were related eventually because of the similarity when you make that gesture."

"But you knew me the minute I said my name."

"Yes."

"Because Esme told you all about me, right?"

"Yes."

"In your _support group."_

"Yes. In our _support group_."

"What did she say?"

"Edward, I can't tell you that. What gets said in the group has to be completely confidential, otherwise no one would speak freely."

"I see."

Of course he didn't see. Not at all. And Bella knew that was mostly her fault, she looked away for a moment, off to the southeast and the slight glow on the horizon that must be the lights of Albuquerque. When she looked back at him, he was staring into the fire, a funny half smile on his face.

"When I was ten, Esme took me on my first camping trip."

"Where to?" she prompted softly, pleased by his change to a reflective mood.

"Near L.A. In the Los Padres Forest. It was just her as beatnik phase was coming to an end."

"Esme had a beatnik phase?" Bella could hardly picture the bright, bubbly Esme as having a beatnik phase.

"You name a phase," Edward said. "And Esme's had it."

For a moment he said no more, so Bella asked, "What was it like-your first camping trip?"

"A nightmare."

"Oh, Edward. It couldn't have been that bad."

"No?" He looked up from his contemplation of the fire long enough to meet her eyes. "Do you really want me to tell you what it was like?"

She nodded. "In detail."

"Why?"

"Oh, honestly, Edward. I like you and I like your mother. I'm always interested to learn about people I like."

He granted her another dubious glance, but then he gazed into the red embers of the fire again and began to speak.

"I remember the two of us driving to the edge of Dick Smith Wilderness. Night was coming. The sky was orange and purple to the west. at twilight, Esme parked the car by the side of the road and handed me my bed roll of blankets while she tucked hers under her arm."

Edward chuckled wryly. "Those blankets were straight off the beds from our apartment," he explained. "I, at least, was wearing tennis shoes. My mother had on a black mini-dress, black high heels and black tights. You see, she'd decided to go camping more or less on the spur of the moment, as she did just about everything."

One of the logs, burned through, collapsed in the red bed of coals, sending sparks arcing into the air between them. A section of the smoldering log rolled beyond the ring of coals. Edward took the stick he's been using as the poker and pushed in back among the glowing embers.

"As I said, it was already almost dark by the time we parked the car," he went on. "And she just marched right out into the bushes on the edge of the dry wash. I followed. She walked for over an hour in high heels, her dress and tights were torn to shreds, but she didn't even mind. She was singing the whole way. Bob Dylan songs. When she finally got too tired to take another step, she just stopped and laid out her blankets on the rocky ground. I stood there beside her. I was so _angry_ at her."

"For dragging you out there like that out of nowhere?" Bella asked.

He grunted. "For that, yes. And for a thousand other reasons. For being different than other guys' moms, for never having meals at regular times, for falling in love every other day, for creating this aura of excitement around herself where I couldn't relax for one minute because I was always wondering, _what next_? Where will she drag me off to, what will she say that we embarrass me in front of my friends-not that I had many friends. We were always moving, always going somewhere better that never turned out to be any different than the place before-" he caught himself up short, and his eyes, which were focused on the past, fixed again on Bella's face. "Anyways, when she stopped and laid her blankets on the ground, I was mad."

"And then?"

"She looked at me. And she knew I was furious. She gave this little half shrug and said, 'Edward, I wish I could be the kind of mother you want. But what I am is the only mother you've got. I'm doing my best, baby. But I'm looking for something. And until I find it, things are always going to be just a little bit up in the air in the Masen house-hold.'"

"So you came to an understanding?" Bella asked quietly.

"Not at all," Edward said. "I was still furious. But, as the years went by, I did realize that she always did her best for me. It wasn't easy, especially in those days, for a woman to raise a child on her own. But I was one responsibility that she never tried to shirk." He laughed again, dryly. "Until I was old enough to be on my own, whatever trouble she got into, she took me right along. And yet she never tried to hold onto me either. I was allowed to stay home from sixteen on. And as soon as I turned eighteen, I moved out on my own with her blessing."

"So the point is," Bella concluded, "That even if Esme wasn't exactly the mother you might have chosen, she was an excellent one on the whole."

"The point is," Edward amended with an irritatingly superior glance, "that I never forgot what she said on the camping trip. A moth ago, when she told me she was going to marry Carlisle, she showed me her ring and she smiled at me int hat mysterious little way she does some times-you know what I mean?"

"I do," Bella said.

"She said, 'Baby, I think I've found it at last.' and she meant it, Bella. I know she did. After years of searching, she's found someone she could be happy with for the rest of her life." He stared at Bella challengingly across the remains of their fire. "And now she's throwing it away."

Bella gazed at him, that dangerous ache of tenderness moving within her again. Tenderness mixed with the familiar longing to give him the truth. It would ease his concern for Esme if he knew the truth about Bella herself, well, he'd drop her off in Albuquerque in the morning and return to his well-ordered life.

"I suppose-" she sat up and wrapped the blanket around her against the increasing chill in t air. "-that this whole thing with me just reminds you unpleasantly of when you were a little boy. Being dragged all over the place without really knowing why."

"It has occurred to me that there are certain similarities," Edward replied.

"How old are you, Edward?"

"Thirty-two." he narrowed his eyes at her suspiciously. "Why?"

"And for the first sixteen years of your life you were at the mercy of Esme's urge to find herself."

"Yes, that's about right. What are you getting at?"

"That leaves the last 16 years where you've done exactly what you want when you wanted. Where you've had nothing but order and predictability."

"I wouldn't go that far," he cut in, too quickly. "Life is never entirely predictable."

"But in so much as you could make it that way, it has been for you?"

"I don't like the direction of this conversation."

"Because you know my conclusion already."

"Then there's no need for you to draw it." He was giving her that jade-eyed glare, hard and impenetrable as a rock.

"Balance Edward," she drawled amiably, once again feeling justified in keeping her secrets for a while longer. "Life is all about balance. And you've been too long in too much control."

For his part, Edward was finding the tenor of this discussion increasingly uncomfortable. "No one can be in too much control of his life." he loathed the defensive tone of his own voice.

"He can if he finds it's turned dry as dust in his hands." Bella was talking about her own life as much as Edward's.

But Edward had no way of knowing that, and now, with that remark, he realized she'd hit something inside him that recoiled at being touched.

My life is not dry as dust, he said firmly to himself. My life is well ordered. My life is already balanced.

But for some reason, he kept seeing his closet at home with his rows of shining shoes, arranged by color and wear ability on wooden shoe trees-business and dress shoes in front, casual wear behind. He saw the rows of hangers with his suits on them, every hanger hookers over the bar front to back. His shirt were all folded precisely, and his sweaters the same.

"_You're so perfect, Edward," _ a woman he'd dated seriously told him the year before._"Too perfect. And completely self-contained. You're a wonderful lover, so I must admit I'll miss that part of our relationship. But, still, there's always been a part of yourself that you've held back. If there's ever going to be someone to break through your reserve, it's not me or I would have succeeded by now..."_

Edward shut out the memory of his ex-lover's words and came back to the present to find himself staring at the fire-flushed face of his mother's secret sister.

**A/N: sorry for not updating sooner. Bu I have an important announcement.**

**I AM CHANGING THE TITLE TO 'Something Wild'. So by next chapter it will be changed. Remember that!**

**Thanks for reading :) review please!**


	14. Chapter 13

**A/n: I' am so sorry for not updating this story. I just lost total inspiration for it and just dropped it. but the other day i was rereading it and i have decided to edit it and finish it. **

**so here it is. the long awaited update! :D**

**Disclaimer:**

**All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Chapter 13**

Bella was wrapped in the lap blanket from the car, her hands hugging her knees, so he could see nothing but her naughtily grinning face, the tips of her white boots and all that glorious hair. He thought of how her hair felt, trickling like liquid silk through his hands. He thought of the milky globes of her breasts the night before, when she'd tossed her shirt over head and driven him almost insane with longing to let go of every shred of reserve and control he'd ever possessed. He'd wanted her to take him inside her, to take him to that place of total abandonment that her every sultry glance had promised since the moment they had met.

Damn you, Bella Swan, he thought, glaring at her as she grinned back at him. Why, with all of the suitable women that there are in the world, did it have to be a footloose temptress like you who would make me want to lose control?

Bella stared back at him, wondering what on earth was going through his mind. His glare was hard and hot, sending conflicting messages of both anger and desire. Her nerves tingled in what might have been warning or anticipation. She lost her grin as she gathered the blanket closer about her, suddenly feeling uncertain and vulnerable. Images of the night before flashed through her mind-of Edward's hands in her hair, his lips on hers, of his body so beautiful and strong beneath her as she sat astride his hips.

He'd wanted her, a lot. Only his much vaunted self-control had kept him from having her. And he could have her any time he wanted, Bella admitted to herself as she watched him watching her. And if he did ever decide to make live with her all the way, then where would she be?

The fantasy Bella might take such intimate activities in stride. but not the real Bella swan. The real Bella swan would be bound to him, and she had a sinking feeling the bonds would be much harder to let go of than dealing with Mike's desertion had been.

A shiver skittered up her spine and Bella drew the blanket even closer about her. Maybe, she thought, she would be grateful that Edward Masen was such a demon for self-control.

At that moment, Edward tore his gaze from hers and began pulling off his boots and shrugging out of the sheep-skin jacket he'd bought during their afternoons shopping spree.

"I take it this conversation is terminated," Bella said. Trying for lightness, though it came out a little strained.

"I'm turning in," Edward said. "Maybe you'll get lucky and I'll actually fall asleep. Then when your message arrives, you won't have to try to keep me from intercepting it."

Bella decided that the wisest course would be to withhold further comment and follow his lead. She took off her boots and jacket and crawled into her sleeping bag. After a few minutes of fitful wriggling, she managed to arrange herself for a minimum of discomfort around the various pebbles and rocks that kept trying to poke her. Far off, she heard a howling sound-a wild dog- or coyote barking at the silver moon. After that, sleep fell upon her like a curtain of night.

In the distance, someone pounded a massive drum. The pounding was intermittent and without any discernible rhythm. In her dreams, Bella beheld a giant Apache warrior looming over the land, resplendent in war paint and feathers, beating a tom-tom with a huge mallet.

Someone shook her and urged, "Bella, come on. Wake up. We have to get out of the open."

Bella grumbled and snuggled farther under the covers, trying again to get comfortable in spite of the rocks in her bed.

"Bella, come on. It 's going to rain."

As if to punctuate those words, the Apache in her dreams hit the tom-tom with all his might.

Bella groaned, rolled to her back and opened on eye. "Whazzat?" She said.

Edward was looking down at her. "Thunder."

Bella sat up. It was still dark. Overhead, the stars were being swallowed up as thunderclouds devoured the sky billowing and rolling they came, with the speed of a rushing train, obscuring the thin slice of moon until it could barely be seen. Straight bolts of lightning cracked out of the sky to the northwest, followed by crashing of thunder that Bella recognized from her dreams. For a moment, as the cobwebs of sleep cleared, Bella just stared up at the sky. Then she threw her arms out, as if she could embrace all of nature's magnificence in her two slender arms.

"Oh, Edward," she cried. "Isn't it spectacular!"

"Hurry up," Edward ordered. He had his rolled sleeping bag under his arm and was headed toward the car. "We've got five minutes tops and then it'll be pouring rain." He tossed the words over his shoulder at her as he rushed to the car.

Bella began pulling on her boots, but apparently she wasn't moving fast enough for Edward. After throwing his sleeping bag in the trunk he charged back to her side.

"Get up."

She did as instructed, jumping on one foot to get the other boot on. With unbelievable speed, he rolled her bag and trotted to the car with it while she struck her arms in the sleeves of her fringed jacket.

"Edward, a little rain isn't going to kill us," she called out good-naturedly, flipping her tangled hair out from under the collar of the jacket tipping her face up to the wild, rolling sky.

At that moment, the sky cracked open and a wall of cold water fell on her face. And kept falling. Bella couldn't believe it it was as if there were firemen up there with a hose trained on her. She was so stunned by the suddenness and force of the deluge that for several seconds she stood and let it soak her to the skin.

Then Edward grabbed her arm. "Come on." he started running for the car and since he had a firm grip on her elbow, she was dragged right along behind him.

When she reach the vehicle, he yanked open the passenger door and shoved her in. Then he ran around and got in on the driver's side

Bella sat in a puddle made by her dripping hair and clothes and stared out the windshield at a wall of water punctuated fitfully by javelins of lightning. Edward started up the engine and turned on the heater.

Then he began taking off his clothes.

He dropped one boot and then the other behind his seat, followed by his tan Levi's and then his plaid skirt. his socks stayed on, apparently because the practical boots he'd bought had kept them dry. Bella gaped at him, amazed partly at his dexterity in getting out of his clothes in the confined space and partly struck once again by the masculine perfection of his body.

"Get those clothes off," he commanded. "You're soaked to the skin." He'd apparently managed to grab a few things from the trunk, because he reached into the back seat and came up with a pair of his new blue jeans and a new shirt. He then slithered into the jeans by sliding around to face her on the seat and shoving one beautifully formed, rock-hard hairy leg and then the other down inside. He shimmied them up over his briefs and buttoned them quickly. Then he stuck his arms in the shirt, not bothering to button it. he laid an arm across the back of the seat and turned to her.

Bella, who had pressed herself against the door to give him room to maneuver, realized she was staring at his broad chest framed by his open shirt-and that the chattering sound she kept hearing was her own teeth knocking together.

"I said, get out of those things." He levered himself up, tossing the order over his shoulder as he reached in the back seat. "I got one of your suitcases from the trunk. I hope there's something warm in here," he said.

Teeth still chattering, Bella cast a glance to the back seat, only to see a froth of lace and satin spilling out of the suitcase in que. He'd chosen the one with her honeymoon lingerie in it.

"What is this?" Edward demanded, disgusted. "A whole suitcase full of underwear?"

"Nightwear," Bella corrected through clenched teeth. She'd discovered that clenching them kept them from knocking together.

"I'll refrain from comment," he said, shaking his head.

"Do that," she shot back. "There should be a T-shirt or two at the bottom."

He dug around and came up with one. "You can use the blanket, too." As he grasped the blanket she'd been wrapped in earlier, she silently applauded his foresight. He'd remembered to throw it in the cab while stowing her sleeping bag in the trunk.

Blanket and T-shirt in hand, Edward slid back over the seat to the front. "You're still dressed," he accused when he was facing her again. "And you're shaking like a leaf. Strip. Now."

Bella began peeling off the ruined jacket and then the soaked white shirt. She was down to her lacy bra on top when Edward said gruffly, "Never mind the bra. There's not enough of it to worry about anyway."

He shoved the T-shirt at her, and she pulled it over her head. "Now, give me your feet," he ordered. "One at a time." Numbly, she did as instructed. He took off the soggy white boots and threw them in the back with his, likewise her thin socks. "Your feet are like ice cubes," he muttered. "But we'll deal with them in a minute. First, the pants."

She wriggled out of them, with much less grace, she thought, than he had. With the wet clothes gone and the heater blasting away, she found that her teeth no longer needed to be locked together to keep them from chattering.

She giggled, softly, as he reached toward her, engulfing her in the big, warm blanket, draping it over her head for a minute and using it as a towel on her hair.

"You find this all hysterically funny, I take it," he grumbled. Scrubbing at her hair with the blanket.

"I was just thinking how much better you are at taking off your clothes in a confined space than I am."

"And that's funny?" His dark brows drew together. they were still wet from the rain, as was his hair. He smelled wonderful, she thought. A cool, wet smell of wood smoke and rain and man.

Bella reached out from the cocoon of the blanket. "Your eyebrows are crooked." With her fingers, very lightly, she smoothed them into even wings.

He caught his breath, and she let her hand stroke down over the chiseled planes of his face and neck to the crisp mat of damp hair on his chest. His skin was so warm and resilient beneath the corkscrews of hair, just as she remembered from the night before.

"You're still a little wet here." She let her fingers curl in the whorls of hair. Her voice had that purr in it. She didn't really know how the purr had gotten there, because she wasn't doing it on purpose.

Edward caught her hand. He held it motionless between them and his expression was very still. very controlled. Then he released her and slowly backed to his side of the car.

Bella realized at the same time as he did that neither of them was breathing. To the droning of the rain on the car was added the sound of a mutual indrawn breath.

"Give me your foot," he said.

"Edward, I..." she heard herself say. and then she couldn't go on. There were so many ways to go on._ Edward, I want. Edward, I'm not who you think I am. Edward, the real me is frightened. Edward, would you. Edward, could you still want me if you knew..._

He interrupted the words she didn't have the courage to utter. "Let me rub your feet. You have to get warm, Bella," he said with calm logic. "We can't leave here until dawn. Even though the rain will probably stop soon, those dirt roads we have to drive on are going to be a disaster. In daylight, I'll at least be able to see what's coming. And I can't leave the engine on all night. We'll run out of gas."

Hesitantly, she slid around in the seat and lifted her bare feet, swinging them into his lap. His hard thighs beneath the blue jeans were warm as toast.

"You're warm." She said simply, with no coquetry at all.

A smile, all the more welcome to her because she knew it came from unbidden curled his mouth. "How do you do it?" He mused. He began stroking her feet with his big hands, bringing the blood and the heat back into them.

"Do what?" She asked thinking about how lovely it felt as he rubbed her arch and messaged each of her toes, and about how there was a tightness to it. Last night, she'd messaged him. Tonight it was his turn to do the work.

"Sometimes, it's as if you're someone else altogether," he explained.

Bella swallowed, and almost pulled her foot away. But he held on and continued with that delicious rubbing. "Someone else?" She dared to ask.

"Yes, someone kind of shy. Someone utterly unsure of herself as a woman."

Bella stared at him. Inside her, a war raged.

_Tell him now_, one part of her mind commanded.

_It'll be over if you do_, another voice inside her head shot back.

His hand felt so wonderful, caressing her foot. The time they'd had together had been so short. And parts of it had been utterly magical. Only a few more days, a time apart. To be the woman she could never be in real life. But the price was continued deception; if she told the truth, most likely the next few days would be ended before they even began.

Bella quickly shifted her gaze out the window. "Look. You were right. The rain is stopping."

He kneaded the ball of her foot, and she knew he was staring at her quizzically. She said nothing, but kept her gaze out the window. She could feel his shrug through the hands that caressed her foot as he decided not to pursue the mystery of her sheer self. She tried to to disguise her sigh of relief.

Outside, as quickly as it had come, the storm left them. The rolling clouds rolled on toward Albuquerque, and the sliver of moon shone its bright sideways grin once again.

"Better?" Edward asked as he left off stroking her foot.

Bella sat up again while Edward button his shirt. "Much." She wrapped the blanket down around her bare feet. "What now?"

"Adjust your seat back all the way, and then I'll turn off the engine. You can try to sleep until dawn."

Bella pushed the little button and the seat slid to a nearly prone position. She settled herself in, and was aware that Edward, next to her, did the same.

For the time she lay there, looking through the beads of water on the windshield at the stars and the humpbacked shadows of the mountains that surrounded them.

"Bella?" Edward's voice in the silence startled her.

"What?"

"What about your message?"

She rolled her head to look at him, and saw in the darkness the gleam of of his eyes and the upward curve of his mouth.

She grinned back at him. "It's not morning yet."

He grunted. "Shall I tell you what I think?"

"Why not?"

"I think this whole trip out here was designed to throw me off the scent."

"You do?"

"I think you'll be making a simple phone call when we get to Albuquerque tomorrow and that's where you'll find out where to go next."

Bella turned her head and stared out the windshield again saying nothing.

Edward assumed her silence meant that he'd guessed right. "Bella, I want you to tell me something," he said after a moment.

She turned to him again. "Edward, I can't-"

He lifted a hand. "Let me finish." It was his turn to glance away. "Look, I've thought about what you said tonight. And maybe you're right. Maybe there is something missing in my life. And maybe it wouldn't hurt me to follow someone else's lead for a few days."

Bella sat very still, hardly daring to believe what she was hearing.

"There are just three points that would have to be clarified," he went on, turning back to face her at last.

"Yes?" The single word that she tried to make sound neutral came out thick with suppressed hope and excitement. Five more days, she was thinking, of Edward and me and a whole big country to explore!

"One," he said grimly. "I have to know." He pinned her with a look, his eyes boring through her, seeking the unvarnished truth. "Is there anything illegal about his group you and my mother are involved in? Any nefarious activities whatsoever-from tax evasion to fraud to drug running. Whatever, I want the truth, Bella and if you lie, I may not know what you're holding back, but I'll be able to sense you're not being honest."

For once she was able to look him in the eye and not worry if he'd guess all that she wasn't telling. "Nothing, Edward. Nothing illegal at all. I swear to you."

He sighed, and she realized it was a sigh of relief. "I can see you really believe that. So whatever negative activities are going on, you, at least, aren't involved in them purposely."

Bella made a concerted effort to quell her exasperation. "Edward, I don't believe it, I know it."

He waved his hand at her. "All right. We've been going in circles for two days now, so let's put it to rest for a while. We won't talk about it again until this _vacation_, as you insist on calling it, has come to an end. Agreed?"

"Absolutely." In her mind's eye she was picturing the magical week stretching ahead of them.

"Point number two," he said.

Bella sat up a little straighter in the laid-back seat. "I'm listening."

"We'll be traveling companions," he explained. "You'll tell me where we're going and I'll get us there without argument. I'll even do my best to be cheerful about it-"

"Wonderful," she couldn't help interjecting.

"But," he said

"I'm listening."

"Point number three is that we won't be lovers."

Bella felt her face redden at the directness of his demand. She was glad that the darkness hid her reaction from his sight. "You mean I have to stop trying to seduce you, is that right?"

"There are too many things you're keeping secret from me, Bella. I could never feel right about myself if I made love with a woman I didn't even know. And it wouldn't be fair to you, either, I hope you can understand that."

"Well." Bella cleared her throat. a part of her was grateful, because she knew that physical intimacy between them would be terribly dangerous for her. The naughty Bella, however, was already wondering just how long he could hold his resolve in the face of sharing every moment with her for the next several days. "Yes, all right," she said at last. "I do understand."

"Bluntly," he reiterated, "I mean no sex."

"No sex. I heard you," she said levelly. "But I want you well rested if you're going to be doing the driving."

"Don't worry, I'll be fine."

"Fine isn't good enough. You have to sleep."

"What are you getting at?" He eyed her warily.

"Turn on the engine and lever these seats out of the way." She tossed back the blanket and bounced over the headrest to the back seat. then she began tossing all the soggy clothing to the front.

"Bella asked you-"

She hoisted her suitcase of lingerie into her own empty seat. "Put the seats up," she ordered.

"And get back here."

"He turned around and was glaring at her warningly. "Bella, we just agreed-"

"Oh, stop it. I'm not going to entice you, for heaven's sake. I'm going to make sure you get enough sleep."

"How?"

"We'll sleep together."

"What kind of solution is that?" He looked at her as if she'd finally gone over the edge.

Disgusted, she planted her hands on her hips and she sat scrunched between the two laid-back seats. "Edward, you fell asleep with me last night. I'm betting you can do it again tonight. I think you like sleeping with me."

He shook his head, his eyes accusing.

"Oh, Edward. Why can't you stop thinking everything that isn't logical is immediate cause for suspicion? So you like sleeping with me next to you, so what? Don't analyze it. Just be grateful that for tonight at least you can get some rest."

He tipped his head and she knew she was swaying him

"Put up the seats, Edward. And get back here with me."

He did as instructed, not saying another word.

Fifteen minutes later, as she lay against chest listening to the steady beating of his heart and the gentle rhythm of his breathing, she found herself unable to quit thinking of the promise she'd made that they wouldn't be lovers during the days to come.

After all, it's for the best, the real Bella reassured herself

But the naughty Bella wasn't nearly so resigned.

_You'll be mine within twenty-four hours_, the wayward temptress promised silently, laying her hand possessively over his heart.

**review please!**


	15. Chapter 14

**A/N: Look at this. an update the very next day, wow aren't you guys lucky :P**

**Thanks to my wonderful Beta for being so awesome and for helping me with this. You can find her at fanfiction ~sirleon**

**Disclaimer:**

**All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Chapter 14**

Bella and Edward slogged into Albuquerque at a little past noon the next day. Bella raised not the slightest objection when Edward checked them into a high-rise luxury hotel. They shared a suite of two bedrooms and a sitting room.

He left her to luxuriate in strawberry bath salts while he found a garage to investigate the strange creaking that had been issuing from the undercarriage of his car ever since they'd hit a particularly deep mud hole on the way back to civilization. While the car was being serviced, Edward placed his call to his private detective.

"So, Edward, no dirt," Jasper had announced "What we've got here is a nice, straight lady who pays her bills before they're due. The bookstore exists and Bella Swan owns it. She's got two sisters, three little nephews and one niece. Her parents are divorced. Her Mother lives in Jacksonville Florida and she's remarried to a minor baseball player. Her father is the police chief in Forks, Washington. She _is_ in a support group with your mother, but it's just that, a bunch of women kibitzing over their problems.

"The only tibid I couldn't find is that this Bella just got dumped by her fiance. But she took her honeymoon anyway. In Palm Springs. Her employees expect her back in a week or so."

"Jasper," Edward said, "this woman isn't the marrying type in the first place. And if she were, you can bet she'd be the one doing the dumping." But even as he spoke, he was putting things together, remembering Bella's suitcase full of honeymoon style lingerie, her scrubbed-clean face in her driver's license photo, and, when they'd been outside the dairy stand in Arizona, she'd given him her own half-serious description of her self as "mousy."

"So," Jasper suggested, "maybe you're sealing with an imposter."

"No," Edward said, thinking of Esme's skill with makeup and a blow dryer. "I think I've got the real thing here. What I have to figure out now is what I'm going to do about it."

Bella was all dressed for a night on the town when Edward returned before five. He told her she looked beautiful, said the car was as good as new and then he disappeared for half an hour into the bathroom on his side of the suite.

He emerged scrubbed and shaved and, best of all, smiling. As he asked, "Where to, now?" Bella realized he really did intend to uphold his end of the bargain. He'd go where she instructed-and without complaint.

She decided they would explore Old Town, the spanish heart of thriving, modern Albuquerque. Edward was marvelously agreeable, so they toured the beautiful San Felipe de Neri Church and wandered the shops and galleries of Old Town Plaza. As dark drew on, they ate arroz con pollo in a lovely Mexican restaurant.

"Tired?" she asked him when they emerged from the restaurant.

He smiled at her. "No, why?"

"I don't know, you seem kind of far away."

"Just thinking." He took her hand, with none of the wariness he usually displayed when he touched her. Enchanted as always by the pleasure just his touch brought her, she curled her fingers in his.

"I suppose you'll want to go dancing," he said.

But she didn't want to go dancing. she just wanted to be alone with him, though she knew such a wish was again tempting fate.

She said, "I don't think so. No dancing. Not tonight."

"The hotel then?"

She nodded. On the way to the car he continued to hold her hand. They drove in silence through the brightly lighted streets, sharing few words during the time Edward parked, or in the elevator, or even after they entered their suite.

The fully stocked wet bar in the sitting room included a complimentary bottle of good champagne, which was chilling in the half ice box beneath the marble counter.

Edward offered her a glass. She nodded, and watched as he expertly popped the cork and poured the fizzy beverage into a pair of crystal flutes. When he handed her her glass, she suddenly thought of Esme, just three nights ago, proposing a toast to the "new Bella Swan."

Edward raised his glass. "To you, Bella Swan," he said in an eerie echo of Esme's words "Whoever you are."

He was smiling warmly. There was absolutely no taunt in the salute at all. Yet Bella felt like crying.

She downed one obligatory swallow of champagne and set her glass down. "I think I'll turn in."

He arched a brow at her. "Alone?"

Bella cleared her throat. "Well, yes, I mean..." She drew in a breath and ordered herself to stop stammering like a schoolgirl. "You're the one who asked for two bedrooms remember?"

He waved his hand as if that had been a momentary aberration on his part. "You know I can't sleep without you. And I imagine you'll have me driving all over the country tomorrow. I need to be well rested for the sake of highway safety." He took a step towards her. She stared at the open collar of his shirt, and the skin of his strong neck. She was thinking how smooth his skin was. And how wonderful to touch.

"I'll help with the driving," she heard herself say.

"But I like to drive." His beautiful, sensual mouth moved into a crooked grin.

Bella realized she was leaning toward him. She caught herself, stepping abruptly back. "I'm going to bed, Edward," she said firmly.

He only smiled. "Sleep well, Bella."

But sleep wouldn't come. Instead, Bella lay in her bed and wondered what in the world had happened.

Since he'd left her to fix the car this afternoon, Edward had been behaving strangely. He'd been so sweet and gentle, and so unbelievably agreeable, going along affably with her every whim. And he'd actually seemed to be enjoying himself. She didn't think he was pretending to have a good time at all.

Bella shivered, though the room wasn't cold.

It was as if, without her knowing exactly when or how, the scales of their relationship had tipped. Something had happened, and now, though she was in complete control of where they went and what they did, she wasn't really in control at all.

There was just something about Edward since this afternoon. Something different. A lack of frustration. As if he were actually letting himself relax-which was just what Bella was after, so she couldn't see why it made so nervous.

She sat up in bed.

On edge, and not understating why, she straightened the silk pajama top that had tucked itself up around her waist. The slinky fabric slit over her skin caressingly, and she felt edgier still.

Bella switched on the lamp. The room the light revealed was beautifully appointed. The walls were painted a white. The furniture was rich mahogany. The bed linens, of that same white as the walls, enfolded her in the softest, sweetest-smelling cotton and lace. On the polished table that stood before the doors to the small balcony sat a crystal vase of fresh-cut flowers. Bella had left the glass door open a crack and a slight breeze ruffled the simy curtains.

It was a room to calm the senses. Yet Bella was not soothed. She turned off the light, deciding she preferred the soft glow of the city lights beyond the gauze curtains to the brightness of the lamp.

She lay in semi darkness for a moment, and then found herself pushing back the covers and swinging one foot to the carpet.

She was spared deciding what to do next, because the door to the sitting room opened.

Bella gulped. "Edward?"

"I've change my mind," he said, his face in shadow, his powerful arms and shoulders outlined in the golden light beyond the open door behind him. He wore the bottoms to a pair of striped pajamas she'd watched him buy the day before.

"About what?" Her voice was low, and seemed to come from outside herself.

"Out agreement." He left her doorway and approached her, his bare feet whispering across the expanse of eggshell white carpet.

"Oh," she murmured, inadequately. Then, not knowing what else to do, she swung her feet back beneath the cover, making room for him to sit on the edge of the bed. She waited for him to start asking questions again, to demand to know who she was and where Esme was and what, exactly, was going on.

Bella let her head drop backward onto the curving headboard of the graceful sleigh bed. She stared up at the shadowed ceiling. She decided that she was going to tell him everything. Get it all out in the open, just as soon as he asked.

But he said nothing. And then he reached out and she felt the sweet caress of his fingers down the slender length of her neck.

Bella gasped, softly, and lifted her head to look at him. He held her gaze, as his fingers deftly began to unbuttoning her pajama top.

It was then that she understood exactly which part of their agreement he was referring to.

She also realized that she wasn't going to do anything to endanger the magic of this moment. In the end, the truth would catch up with her. But now, not tonight...

"Are you going to make love to me, Edward?" she heard herself asking as the buttons continued to slip from the holes.

"Yes."


	16. Chapter 15

Edward peeled open the front panels of her silky top and Bella felt the night air on her bare breasts.

"Do you know how beautiful you are?" he said.

"I am?" She looked down at her breasts. They shone like alabaster in the dim light, her nipples hardening with growing arousal.

He chuckled. "You are." she glanced up, and met his eyes again. Her gaze was sleepy, full of promise and sweet desire.

He bent his bronze haired head toward her, and he kissed her, at the top swell of one breast.

Her heart, which had been beating very fast, suddenly decelerated in rhythm, as though her blood had thickened, and now flowed through her body with the slow sweetness of honey.

She took his head in her hands, guiding him, reveling in the silky feel of his hair against her palms and through her fingers. His mouth moved slowly downward and then closed on her nipple

The honey in her veins turned molten and she groaned as he suckled her, first gently and then more insistently, until she felt she had been turned inside out by the hot, increasing demand of his mouth.

Then his lips stopped their magic torment. She clutched his bronze haired head closer, unwilling to let him go. In answer to her sensual plea, his mouth closed on her other breast, and he gave it the same stunningly erotic attention as he had the first.

Her senses reeling in a dance of escalation delight, Bella moaned aloud. Edward lifted his mouth again from her breast. Stroking his hair, Bella looked down into his face. His lips were full and moist from pleasuring her.

"You like that," he said, his voice like rough velvet.

"I love it," she purred with total frankness, her hands trailing down to caress his shoulders. Never in her life had she felt this free, this able to respond just has her body and heart commanded. A magical, new self who was utterly at ease with her own sensuality, a woman who knew how to give and receive pleasure without hesitation or guilt.

Sighing, the pleasure like a voluptuous heaviness swelling every nerve, Bella let her hands drift down to his muscled arms to rest on the white coverlet. Then she slid to a prone position among the pillows, arching her back like a cat seeking strokes. "Kiss me there again, Edward," she said.

He chuckled. "You're greedy."

"Yes, I'm greedy for you."

He shifted beside her, lifting his weight enough that he could toss away the pile of sheets and blankets. Boldly staring into his eyes, Bella toyed with her own hair as it spread and coiled in wayward tendrils on the pillows that cradled her head.

"Please kiss me there again, Edward," she coaxed.

"I will. Soon."

"Promise?"

"Swear it. But first..." The way his voice trailed off insinuated much.

Bella reveled in such insinuations. "Yes. Name it, Edward. Whatever you want."

His glance licked along the entire length of her, from her fanned hair to her bare toes. "Those pajamas are very pretty."

"But?"

"But the top's covering your arms and shoulders..."

"And?"

"The bottom's covering your legs."

Brazenly, she lifted her hips off of the bed. "Then take them off of me."

His white teeth flashed as he put both hands on her waist, just above the elastic waistband of the silky pajama bottoms. Bella gasped, loving the warmth and firmness of his palms against her bare skin.

His thumbs slid beneath the elastic, and then his hands were under there. She lifted herself to hello him as the silk whispered down her legs and off the ends of her pointed toes.

"Better?" she asked.

"Much." he was looking at her legs, his gaze caressing them as surely as if he were actually touching her the skin of her thighs prickled in a shivery sensation.

"Now, the top," he said.

Obligingly, she sat up again. He took the collar of the shirt in either hand, and began peeling it back from her shoulders. But he had to get close to do that, his face near hers, his breath warm against her neck.

Brushing her hair out of his way, Bella turned her head toward him. What happened next stunned her with its beauty.

A kiss. Just a meeting of the lips, but a meeting to achingly sweet that Bella wondered if she'd ever know its likeness again.

He breathed her name against her mouth, she took the breath inside herself. He went on nibbling at her, kissing her, sharing his breath with her as he guided the nightshirt down her arms, and dropped it on the floor.

Then he drew her close, deepening the kiss, and rubbing himself against her in a thoroughly delightful way, so that the crisp hairs on his chest chafed her soft breasts in a delectable torment.

She dropped her head back, breaking the lovely kiss, but losing nothing when his mouth immediately found her neck, the delicate perfection of her collarbone and at last her full breast once more. She moaned and offered herself up to his lips, writhing with pleasure in his arms.

Soon, her roving hands discovered the elastic that held up his pajama bottoms. With little wordless, hungry urgings, losing the feel of his mouth on her breasts but intent on claiming new ground, she coaxed him to his knees on the bed besides her.

In the shadowed room, there was the sound of a woman's and a man's husky laughter, as she worked his pajamas down over his hard hips and consigned them to the floor next to her own. He had nothing on beneath.

Bella looked down at him, thinking every single part of him was just about perfect as could be.

He was chuckling again. "What?"

She looked into his slumberous eyes. "Everything. You're perfect." She touched him. It was totally natural thing to do. "All of you." Her hand closed around him.

Edward groaned, and threw his head back, muttering a short oath under his breath.

Bella went on exploring him. "You like that?" She asked.

He didn't answer. He didn't have to. By the way he moved to her touch, he was telling her that he was hers to command.

"Edward?"

He growled in his throat a reply.

"Remember in the motel room, in Winslow?"

He growled again.

"Remember how I was on top? Do you think we could do that again?"

For a moment, she stopped touching him to look into his face. He took advantage of the moment to carry her backward on top of him, giving her an answer without saying a word. And then he was sliding the little triangle of silk that covered her hips down over her bottom and off to the floor.

She reached for him again, but he stopped her. His eyes had that absolutely still, deep look that she remembered so well from the night before in the mountains, when he had taken her hands in the rain-pelted car and stopped her from touching him.

Only now, everything was changed. He _was_ stopping her from touching him-but only because he wanted to touch her.

Which he did. Holding her haze, he caressed her as she sat astride him, doing to her just what she'd been doing to him. She twisted and bucked above him, lost in the sensual glory of what he did to her, finally throwing her head back and giving in completely to the magic of pure sensation.

Beyond the filmy curtains, the city of Albuquerque glittered like a cache of jewels in a desperado's pocket. But inside the darkened room, there was only a woman and a man.

When at last he felt her complete openness to him, he guided her above him. She sank down upon him, taking him fully into her, and the sound he made at their joining was an echo of hers.

She rose up as he moved wildly beneath her, and she followed the rhythm he set. And he said things-crazy things- into her mouth when she claimed him with a kiss, and into her hair which fell in wild tangles onto his heaving chest.

Wild, it was. For both of them. An emancipation each had sought a lifetime to find. And now, locked in the most ancient dance of all, they approached freedom. The dance had a thousand different cadences. It melted and hanged without prelude, so that, at last, neither knew who led and who followed.

While at first she rode him, the time came when he rose up above her and drove into her, hard and fast. And she took every inch of him crying out harshly for more, holding him to her as his heartbeat, reckless and untamed, against her breasts.

The culmination, though, came on a slow build, as they rolled to face each other. There, the rhythm established itself, like slow-rolling thunder, tumbling down from high mountains over a thirsty, waiting land.

Bella couldn't stop crying his name, over and over, as her release came to her. She clung to him then, tightly, wondering inchoately how she had ever survived without Edward's arms to hold he and his touch to set her free.

At last, they lay against each other, heart to heart. And Bella smiled into the darkness. Edward's breath was slow and even. He was fast asleep.

From then on, they didn't bother with the pretense of separate bedrooms. They would hang the Do not Disturb sign wherever they stayed and then immediately proceeded to set each other free. Then later, when their passions were thoroughly spent, Bella would sleep curled against him.

More than once, just before dawn bleached the sky, she would wake, warm in the heat of his body.

This, she would think, is what happiness is. This is love, and thank heaven I've found it at last.

And then she would remember the thousand ways she had deceived him, and long only to have the truth revealed once and for all.

"Edward?" she would whisper, hesitant but determined.

"Go back to sleep." And he would settle her more comfortably against his heart, pressing his lips in the tangled cloud of her hair.

_Coward_, her conscience would scold. But his arms felt so sheltering around her, and nothing was so wonderful as the feel of his breath against her hair. So she'd surrender to the moment, snuggling closer to him, closing her eyes against the coming dawn.

And then somehow, with daylight, adventure would beckon in the form of the long, leading strip of the highway. They'd snatch a quick breakfast and be on their way.


	17. Chapter 16

On Tuesday, just outside of Amarillo, she made Edward stop the car on the shoulder of the highway, and then she dragged him across a huge field. In the distance, several cows lazily observed their progress.

Edward argued the whole way they were probably trespassing, but he too stood in awe when they finally reached their destination: ten upended Cadillacs half-buried nose-down in the rich ploughed-up earth.

Later, they would learn that the nose-down machines were millionaire Stanley Marsh III's pop-art homage to the fifties. But right then, to Bella, the magical absurdity of the half-submerged cars charmed her utterly. She wasn't sure exactly why. She supposed it was partly the twenty rear wheels hanging in the air, as if the row of old luxury cars had dived from the sky in tandem only to land nose-down in the mud. But mostly, the sight made her think of Esme, who had set her off on this grand adventure, and whose own Caddy had bit the dust in the desert between Palm Springs and Prescott.

"Oh, Edward, isn't it great?" Bella breathed reverently.

Edward shook his head. "Only in America," he said. And then he pulled her into his arms, told her she was crazy and kissed her right there for all the cows to see.

"Why Edward," she said with a sigh when he was finished. "What's happened to you?"

He gazed down at her ruefully. "Something wonderful," he said. "Something wild."

They spent that night in Amarillo. The next morning, Bella placed another of her mysterious phone calls and then informed Edward that they were detouring down into Texas.

Wednesday and Thursday, they rode through wide open spaces and wandered the streets of Lubbock and Abilene, cutting across the center of the state Dallas-Fort Worth and then back up through Wichita Falls. They spent the night there Thursday.

And it was as she lay against Edward in the wee hours, experiencing those nagging pangs of guilt, that it suddenly struck her: six days was a very short time. Though it seemed as if they'd barely begun, their time together was coming to an end.

After a leisurely brunch the next morning, they crossed the Red River and entered Oklahoma, reaching Oklahoma city late Friday afternoon.

"Let's just keep driving," Bella suggested her voice sounding too light, almost brittle to her ears. Since the night before, when she had at last admitted that the moment of truth was approaching, she'd had to make a concentrated effort to keep from bursting into tears every time she looked at the map and realized how close they were getting to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Edward cast her a quick sideways glance, and a warm smile. "Where to?" His window was down, his bronze hair blown slightly by the wind. He looked tan and relaxed. Fit as ever, but not one bit tense. If her goal had been to get him to lighten up, then she could give herself a big hand for a job well done.

For some reason, though, she didn't feel much like clapping.

"Bella?" Edward's glance this time was tinged with the beginnings of concern. "Something wrong?"

"No. No, nothing." She looked down rather blindly at the map, and forced her eyes to focus on their route, "Henryetta," she said.

"Who?"

"Oklahoma. Henryetta, Oklahoma. That's where we have to be tonight."

"I've learned never to ask why." Edward smiled at her again, an open, good-humored smile, the kind of smile he had for her all the time since their magic night in Albuquerque. The kind of smile she'd probably never see again after they met up with Esme and the full truth was revealed.

Our last night, she thought. Tonight.

Suddenly, this moment and every moment of the brief hours ahead seemed infinitely precious. Bella wanted to memorize every second, to imprint each fleeting heatbeat of time on her senses for all the years to come.

She turned to look out her open window. Oklahoma farmlands rolled by, great expanses of new corn and stillgreen wheat. The air that swirled in to tease her hair and caress her face held the moisture of a land crisscrossed with rivers, so much different than the thin, dry air of the south-western deserts that they'd left behind when they reached the Texas panhandle three days before.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Edward said, sensing her appreciation.

"I wish it would never end," she said,

Edward said nothing. Bella dared a sideways glance at him, but the glance told her nothing. He drove with easy concentration, one elbow resting in the open window.

"But it is going to end," she added, though she knew she shouldn't.

He glanced at her, and then took his gaze back to the road. "Did you imagine it wouldn't?"

"I didn't let myself think about it"

"I know."

She felt irritated with him, though she knew it was unfair. "What's happened to you , anyway?" she heard herself demanding. "You're certainly taking this all in stride."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" His tone was infuriatingly mild.

"You could at least pretend that you're going to miss me when it's over," she said, sounding like a petulant child and hating herself for it

"Don't be a brat, Bella. And stop trying to pick a fight."

"I'm not-"

He glanced at her again, and that was all it took. She admitted to herself that she was indeed being a brat and subsided into silence in her seat.

After a time, she said, "We're going out tonight, Edward."

He chuckled. "For a wild night on the town in Henryetta, Oklahoma?"

"Exactly. I'm getting a major message in Henryetta's hottest night spot."

"I see." He sounded very tolerant. Very patient. And why shouldn't he? He'd waited almost a week, and now the truth he'd bargained for would finally be his. He could wait a little longer with ease and grace.

"It's going to be our last night together, Edward."

"Oh, is it?"

"Yes. And I'm going to do my very best to make sure that you never forget it."

The night spot that Bella chose was only a few miles from their motel. She'd found it by asking their waitress at Ken's Pizza about Henryetta nightlife when Edward had gone to the restroom.

"You mean like a club?" the waitress had quizzed in that soft friendly twang of the native Oklahoman.

When Bella had assured her that a club was exactly what she meant, the waitress had given her directions.

The Cubhouse, as the sign out front proclaimed, was surrounded by a parking lot bursting with cars. The building itself looked like nothing so much as a huge gray barn, complete with rounded roof and clapboard walls.

"This isn't bad at all," Edward murmured after paying the cover charge and leading her to one of the tables against the wall. Bella said nothing in response to that, but his implication didn't escape her. Since he'd known her mood was rash, he's probably expected some sort of honky-tonk dive.

He glanced approvingly at the two burly uniformed security guards near the door. Bella knew what he was thinking: if there was going to be trouble in Henryetta, Oklahoma tonight, it wasn't likely to happen at The Clubhouse.

A cocktail waitress came by and Edward looked at Bella. She shrugged. "A beer." He asked for one, too. The cool, long-necked bottles came and Bella and Edward sat just sipping for a while, listening to the fiddle player in the band at the end of the dance floor. Bella took in the layout of the place, thinking without much enthusiasm of how she was going to have to lose him for awhile receive her latest-and final "message."

The big room was arranged in a horseshoe shape, with the bar at the toe end, the dance floor in the center, and the band in the heal. She and Edward sat on one side of the "Shoe." Across the way were rows of pool tables.

Though she tried to concentrate on her surroundings, Bella's gaze kept returning to Edward. He was wearing the dressy Western clothes she'd made him buy when she'd dragged him through Luskey's Western Store in Fort Worth. His yoked dress shirt had mother-of-pearl-snaps. His smooth weave-cowboy hat bore a Mansfield cutter crease. A silly lump formed in her throat as she thought of the two of them, poring over the ats together, arguing over styles and colours. In the end, he'd bought the hat she liked.

He caught her looking at him.

"Love that hat," she got out over the noise from the hand.

He took it off and set it on her hair, winking at her when she had to tip her head up to see him.

The wink almost did her in. It took all the will she possessed not to burst into tears. She realized she had to escape him for a few minutes, to get her emotions back in line.

She slid out of her chair, setting his hat on the table as she went. "Be right back."

"Bella?" he asked, his voice tinged with apprehension. But she kept moving, leaving the elevated seating area behind and losing herself among the couples on the dance floor.

Not looking back, she ploughed through the dancers, murmuring "Excuse me's" right and left as she went.

Bella emerged from the dance floor and rushed up the few steps to the other side of the room, her eyes brimming with tears she was determined not to shed. The tears, unfortunately, blurred her vision. That was why she rammed right into two hundred and fifty pounds of pool player just bending over to drop his winning shot.

Unaware of the sudden deathly silence in the immediate vicinity, Bella tossed off another "excuse me" and tried to forge on. But the pool player grabbed her arm.

"Just a minute there, little lady," he said.

Bella furiously blinked back the tears and stared up into a narrowed pair of small brown eyes. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered. "I wasn't paying attention."

"You just blew my game." The big man's breath was ninety nine proof. Bella realized that though he spoke with deadly clarity, the man was far from sober. He pointed to the felt. "You see that ball there, little lady?"

"You mean the eight ball?"

"That's right." He chose each word carefully, as if he was talking to someone of minimal IQ. "I was just about to drop that ball, and now, see that man over there?" He pointed to a rangy character across the table, who was leaning against his cue stick grinning.

Bella nodded.

"That's Lester. And now Lester is going to get a turn. Lester ain't as good as me, but he's good enough."

"Look, I am really sorry-"

"Let her go." Edward's calm quiet voice seemed to cut through the air behind her.

The big pool player was looking over her head. "This yours?" he asked, as if Bella were something that dropped out of Edward's pocket. "She's real nice to look at, but she needs to learn to pay attention to where she's going."

"I said, let her go."

Bella whipped her head around to see Edward moving in. His face was utterly, terrifyingly composed. Frantically, she scanned the room for the security guards. One was across the room near the door and looking in the wrong direction.. The other was nowhere in sight.

Edward had reached her side. She was sandwiched between the two men. Though the band played on and the dancers on the floor two-stepped merrily along, everyone in the immediate vicinity seemed to be watching with bated breath.

The pool player and Edward stared at each other. Bella glanced from one hard face to the other.

"Look," she said. "I was in the wrong. Isn't there some friendly way we could settle this?"

The pool player peered down at her. And then back up at Edward Then his broad face split in a challenging grin.

"Sure," he said. "Let's dance."

"Forget it," Edward said. "Let go of her arm."

"No," Bella cut in quickly. "Edward, its all right." She shook off the pool player, who released her since she'd agreed to his terms.

Placatingly, she laid her hand on the front pocket of Edward's shirt. "It's okay." She stared up into his expressionless face, willing him to let her handle this herself

After a moment, he backed away. she felt the collective exhale breath as everyone nearby realized a fight wasn't the offing after all.

"All right," she said to the pool player. "Let's dance." She walked ahead of him out to the floor, thinking it wouldn't be so bad to stand a foot away from him and gyrate to the music the way most of the dancers were doing.

Unfortunately, a slow number started up the minute they reached the floor. Bella was immediately hauled hauled against a barrel chest by a pair of beefy arms.

"By the way, I'm Del."

She craned her neck to look up at his heavy face-the action was also an attempt to keep a reasonable space between his body and hers.

"You mean Del as in Delbert?" she asked sweetly.

His wiry brows furrowed. "I'll let it pass this time, pretty lady, for you. But I'm warning you now. Nobody-but nobody calls this old boy Deber." He yanked her close again and exhaled the threat against her ear. She was once again reminded that he wasn't entirely sober. "What's a gorgeous thing like you doing with a weekend cowboy like that?"

Bella had the urge to stick her two fingers in Delbert's beady little eyes and stomp on his foot. Instead, she murmured sweetly, :He's not what you think at all. Actually, I'm his prisoner."

"His what?" Delbert blessedly pulled back for a moment, long enough to scowl down at her disbelievingly.

"I'm his prisoner. He's on the trail of Esme Mason. And I'm his only lead."

"Who's EsmeMason?"

Bella scoffed. "You never heard of Esme Mason?"

"Sure, I heard of her," Delbert muttered defensively. "I got a tv, you know." He yanked Bella back against his chest. "But I don't believe you for a second, little lady. You're just havin' you some fun at this old boy's expense."

His huge hand was rubbing her back through her thin camisole top. Bella tried to bear with that, but when his hands slipped to the pocket stitching on her skin-tight black jeans, she drawled, "One inch lower, and you'll be shooting pool one-handed, Del."

Mercifully, his hand roamed back to where it belonged. "How 'bout you and me, we ditch that guy you came with and have us some fun?" he whispered suggestively in her ear.

The dance ended. "No, thanks," she said. She whirled neatly out of his arms-and into Edward's, who had been waiting on the edge of the floor.

They danced in silence for a while and Bella clung to him, aware from the stiffness of his body that he wasn't entirely happy with her, but grateful for his clean scent and the firm strength in his arms.

Once or twice she tipped her head to glance up at his face, appealingly, she hoped. But beneath the shadow of his hat brim his expression remained stoic. She was just about to suggest that they depart The Clubhouse and return to the motel when a beefy hand tapped Edward on the shoulder.

Del Dearborn had not surrendered. "Mind if I cut in?" he said, in a pushy mockery of courtliness.

"Yes," was all Edward said. He went on dancing.

"I asked real polite-like." Del's hand closed over Edward's shoulder.

"I suggest you remove your hand," Edward said. He'd stopped dancing, and so had most of the couples nearby.

"Where you from?" sneered the pool player. "Yale? And where'd you get this fancy hat?" He whipped the hat that Bella loved off of Edward's bronze head.

"Delbert!" Bella cried, unable to contain herself. "You give that back!"

"What'd you call me?" Delbert turned to Bella.

"Stay out of it, Bella," Edward ordered.

"I will not. He's an ass. And he's not going to get away with it!"

"I warned you not to call me that, little lady." The music played on, but most of the dancers were still.

Bella planted her hands on her hips. "Delbert," she said. "Give that hat back this minute!"

"Better do it, Del," one of the unmoving dancers advised. "That lady sounds serious."

Delbert dropped the hat on the floor and stomped on it..

Bella saw red. With an exclamation of total frustration, she leaped at the big pool player. She never made it, though, because Edward stepped in front of her and neatly decked the giant with a hook to the jaw.

The rest was total confusion. When Delbert dropped among the dancers, he didn't go down alone. He was like a massive tree falling in a forest, taking everything in his way down with him. Suddenly, in the tight press, everybody had a punch to throw. All the men jumped to the defense of their ladies and everyone thought the next guy was out to get him.

It was a brawl, pure and simple. A free for-all that two security guards could no more quell immediately than Noah could stop the flood. As fists flew and bodies reeled around her, Bella had only one thought: the hat that they'd chosen together. That precious hat that he'd bought to please her. Edward wasn't going to lose his hat!

She kept her eyes on it, through the milling press of bodies, as boot and high heels unheedingly kicked and pummeled it toward the edge of the dance floor.

Edward had a hold of her arm. "Damn it, Bella. Let's get out of here..." He was trying to pull her in the wrong direction.

She shrugged him off and dived for the hat. Her hand closed around the brim as Edward caught her again, yanked her up just before an alligator boot came down on her arm, and hauled her backward through the throng.

Ducking flying chairs and dodging wild punches, he dragged her behind him up to the raised level by the bar and into the hall beneath the sign that said 'Restrooms.' She dared one last glance at the room as they left it. Delbert Dearborn, sporting a bloody nose and the beginnings of a black eye, was being held firmly between the two burly guards. Gratifyingly, he looked as if he'd had enough of picking fights for the night

Edward tugged her right past the restrooms to the end of the hall and the emergency exit there. He shoved at the red bar, cursing under his breath when the alarm went off.

Together, they ran into the cool, moist night air, pounding through the rows of cars of the waiting chrysler. Edward unlocked her door, shoved her inside and leaped the hood to his side.

She reached across and had his door open for him before he got there. He started up the engine and backed out.

Miraculously, Edward got them out of the parking lot without incident. Bella held her breath for the whole time, because the other drivers who'd somehow also managed to escape the fracas were zipping out of spaced with no awareness of what might be behind them. To Bella, for that heart-stopping few minutes, the parking lot seemed like a giant game of bumper cars played for real.

But soon they were back on the short strip of highway that led to their motel, and shortly after that, the chrysler was sliding into the parking space near their room.

The car seemed eerily silent when Edward turn off the engine.

"We're lucky we weren't invited to spend the night in the local jail," Edward said after a moment.

"I know." Bella looked down at the cowboy hat, still clutched in her hands. It was smashed flat and covered with dirty boot prints. the unwelcome tears rose to her throat again, pushing for release.

"I suppose you're going to tell me you received your next set of instructions during the scuffle," Edward suggested blandly.

She forced herself to look at him, feeling the tears pooling in her eyes, and willing them not to well over the disgrace completely.

"No, Edward. I'm not going to tell you that."

"So you've got to make a phone call?"

"No."

For a moment, he just looked at her. Then he asked, "Are you trying to tell me something, at last?"

Bella kept her chin defiantly high. "Yes. There are no instructions to get in the first place."

There was another silence, an awful one. Then he asked carefully, "What do you mean?"

Bella dragged in a painful breath and told the truth."I made them up. All of them. Since Esme's phone call at the Boca Grande Cafe in Winslow last Sunday morning."

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**A/n: I'm so sorry for very late update. I got writers block halfway through this, but i worked my way through it and actually got a decent chapter out :)**


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